The facts about shielding fabric
As well as being a commercial supplier we also like to share our knowledge for people who want to know. We have put together unbiased fact sheets for each of the products we supply.
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An unbiased data sheet
Conductive material has been about for 20 years and is made in several countries. The base fabric can be Polyester or Nylon (or hybrids thereof)
The adhesion of the metal deposition onto the non-conductive carrier is very important as this will determine the durability of the product and the resistance to particle shedding.
The carrier substrate is first chemically etched and metal ‘seeds’ are then deposited onto the etched surface, the direct metal bonding layer on Nylon is normally silver, on polyester it is normally copper.
The metal build up normally involves copper and normally has a nickel finish to prevent oxidization and increase durability.
The finished product is normally rated in milliohms per square and the wheatstone bridge four probe method is normally used to measure the conductivity.
A good shielding material ought to be <25 milliohm/?
There are less conductive fabrics which are used for anti-static purposes
There are variants with pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) and other coatings
The uses for conductive fabric are generally:
The conversion of the sheet material can be by cutting, sewing, gluing and other fabric processes.
