Flexible nonwoven/sliver paste composite using screen printing strategy for electromagnetic interference shielding application.

• The flexible nonwoven/sliver paste composite (NSPC) is fabricated using a screen printing strategy. • The NSPC has a high total shielding effectiveness value of ∼59.3 dB. • Such NSPC shows great potential in the development of high-performance electromagnetic interference shielding applications. In this work, an innovative screen printing strategy is applied to fabricate lightweight flexible electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials. The polypropylene (PP)-based nonwoven fabric (PNF) shows a low total shielding effectiveness (SE T) value of ∼ 0.3 dB because PNF possesses low conductivity and porous fabric structure. However, the nonwoven/sliver paste composite (NSPC) coated with a thin layer of silver paste has a high SE T value of ∼59.3 dB. Moreover, the reflection makes significant contribution to EMI SE T when incident wave enters the materials, indicating the reflection dominated shielding mechanism rather than absorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]