A preliminary study of the preparation and characterization of shielding fabric coated by electrical deposition of amorphous Ni-Fe-P alloy

A flexible shielding fabric with dense uniform coating was prepared after electrical deposition of amorphous Ni-Fe-P alloy on copper-coated polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fabric. The manufacturing process was studied using orthogonal test with 8 factors and 3 levels. The effects of coating composition and the SE were discussed by pH value. The morphology, composition, and structure of coating were analyzed by SEM, EDS, and XRD characterizations. The electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness (SE) was also tested. The results indicate that the processing conditions of electrical deposition amorphous Ni-Fe-P alloy coated fabric are: 140 g/L NiSO4⋅6H2O, 100 g/L FeSO4⋅7H2O, 10 g/L NaH2PO2⋅H2O, 24 g/L C6H8O6, 36 g/L C6H8O7⋅H2O, 20 g/L H3PO3, 65 °C, pH = 1.5, and current density = 13 A/dm2. The resulting fabric possesses dense, smooth, and uniform coating, which consists of amorphous Ni-Fe-P alloy with 17.04% P (weight percent). The EMI SE of this coated fabric achieves 59.3-70.2 dB, in a broad frequency range between 300 kHz and 1.5 GHz.