Progress in polymer nonwoven textile materials in electromagnetic interference shielding applications

Abstract Multifunctional flexible conductive materials have generated significant interest in developing future portable electronic systems, including wearable electronics, implantable devices, and many more. Producing wearable electronics materials that are dependable in all-weather situations and provide high-performance electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding remains challenging. "electromagnetic textile materials" refers to these wearable EMI shielding garments. One key material that can address the EMI problem facing systems such as wearable/flexible circuit working environments and human health is conductive polymeric nonwoven (NW) textile materials. In this review, our focus is primarily limited to the polymeric NW textile and their composites family as effective EMI shielding materials. The study provides the fundamentals of NW-based EMI shielding mechanisms, mechanisms to mitigate EM reflection, and fabrication techniques of EMI shielding NW materials. Also, the standard for future researchers to select the ideal material combination for effectively mitigating EMI waves as shields/filters is presented. Review articles exist on EMI shielding textiles in general, but no single article is dedicated to NW textile-based EMI shields. Again, no review article exists presenting the approaches employed towards mitigating EM wave reflection in NW -based EMI shield design and fabrication. In addition, the challenges encountered with the fabrication and/or application of NW-based EMI shielding materials are presented in this paper. The question of why NW selection is the primary structure for EMI shield fabrication is presented herewith for the first time in this article.