Shielding Efficiency Study of Sodium Based Chitosan Polymer with Different Types of Filler

Sodium based chitosan (CH/Na) polymer was prepared with four different fillers and the suitability for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding were tested based on its electrical conductivity and shielding efficiency. The sodium based chitosan polymer was prepared by mixing the chitosan powder with sodium ion solution (Na) and the selected filler was added to the mixture in order to further improve the electrical properties of the composite. The fillers selected for this work were Copper (II) Selenite (CuSe), Iron (III) oxide (Fe3O4), Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and Fe-doped ZnO (FeZnO). Results show that using the Na and additional filler will increase the conductivity of pure chitosan film from reported 10
^-4
μS/cm to 10
^-5
S/cm. The CH/Na polymer with CuSe filler shows the highest electrical conductivity at 5.23×10-5 S/cm, followed by Fe3O4, ZnO and FeZnO. The CH/Na/CuSe polymer are also tested at different thickness with a high of 1.5 dB of shielding obtained. Increasing the (w/v)% of CuSe further increased the shielding efficiency to up to 19.55 dB.