Fabrication of copper/modal fabric composites through electroless plating process for electromagnetic interference shielding

Electroless copper deposition on chemically grafted modal fabric (MF) has been developed. The process is relied on 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS) grafting onto MF via a simple coupling reaction. Cu/MF composites can be obtained in three steps: (i) grafting of APTMS onto MF; (ii) activating of the grafted MF surface with silver, gold or palladium; (iii) copper plating of the activated MF using electroless bath. Raman, XPS, XRD and SEM were used to characterize the MF samples from every step. The copper coating through silver activation has a smoother surface, higher electrical conductivity and better electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) by comparing to the other two activation samples. All the copper coatings via different metal activations are adhered firmly to the MF substrates, as determined by a standard adhesive Scotch®-tape test. These results indicate that the Cu/MF composites are strong enough to be useful in applications requiring conductive fabrics.