At 5 vol. % of fibre (FIG. 2), the addition of stearic acid slightly increases the shielding but it remains very weak under the 5 dB. At 20 vol. % of fibre (FIG. 3), the addition of stearic acid also increases the shielding which goes from 65 to 70 dB at low frequency. At high frequency (>100 MHz), an impressive maximum value of 97 dB is reached at 300 MHz. For the 10 vol. % composite of silver glass fibres (FIG. 4), the addition of 2 vol. % stearic acid increases the shielding from 40 to 50 dB at low frequency. Also, the high-frequency shielding, instead of decreasing, increases and reaches a maximum value of 64 dB at 3 GHz. Adding stearic acid additional to 4 vol. % is harmful to the shielding, suggesting that there is an optimal amount of stearic acid.
These results show the great potential of PP composites—silver glass fibres and the positive effect of adding stearic acid. The target shielding of 40 dB at 1 mm sample thickness is reached and even exceeded from 10 vol. % of fibre with and without stearic acid and it can be expected to reach it for lower fibre concentrations in the presence of stearic acid. The great advantage of these composites is their low density due to the low concentration of fibres necessary to obtain a high shielding value and the low density of the fibres. Indeed, the density of the composite for 10 vol. % of fiber is equal to 1.09 g/cc and equal to 1.28 g/cc for 20 vol. % of fibre.
The effect of the stearic acid concentration was further studied, the results are provided in FIG. 5, the content of fibres was 10 vol. % the thickness of the plate was 1 mm, and in FIGS. 6 and 7 wherein the content of fibres was 15 vol. %.