Agricultural Waste Based Biocomposite for Electromagnetic Shielding Application

The enhanced significant use of electromagnetic wave introduces new type of pollution in the environment called Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). Different shielding techniques though successfully works in the present scenario but small efficiency of attenuation and absorption capacity of traditional ceramics demands some alternative potential material for enhanced shielding efficiency, which can be realised from agricultural waste such as rice husk, sugarcane bagasse, etc. Further, the shielding structure and composition of composite are the current issues which depend on the dielectric properties of the fabricated materials. In the current work, rice husk, an organic biomaterial rich in carbon, is combined with epoxy to create a microwave absorber that is flexible, inexpensive, and eco-friendly. The different microwave absorbing property such as complex dielectric, tangent loss, attenuation constant and Reflection Loss (RL) of −14.5 dB at frequency 10 GHz are found to be possessed by the synthesized composite of thickness 3 mm which is determined from composite’s dielectric values. The attenuation coefficient supports the measured values of RL, highlighting the significance of the suggested composite material with a power attenuation efficiency of around 87% for legitimate microwave absorption applications. The presence of good percentage of elemental combination like carbon, oxygen and silicon makes it possible for increasing the percentage of activated carbon which is not present in any other synthetic component for the same purpose. Further use of carbon rich waste material is an advantageous impetus for material industries to enhance the percentage of activated carbon for shielding purpose.