Recently, in the telecommunication industry 5G technology is launched and has the potential to reach 20 Gbps speed based on 3GPP industry specifications. It is one of the fastest, most robust technologies the world has ever seen. However, there is a rising concern that 5G could be devastating to the environment. Most importantly, 5G will increase the amount of electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere, leading to an increased risk for disease and a high risk of cancer. According to Joel Moskowitz, a researcher in the School of Public Health and director of the Center for Family and Community Health at UC Berkeley – “research has shown significant adverse biological and health effects — including brain cancer — associated with the use of cellphones and other wireless devices.”

Thus microwave shielding of cellular phones is extremely important to minimize the exposure of high frequency 5G signals to the human cells. In this EMI shielding area, Dr Kotnala has published tremendous research work on microwave shielding materials in high-impact journals and has a US patent also. He has provided consultancies to the industries to establish EMI shielding performance measurement setups.

• EMI/EMC Test Facility Planned and Established: EMI radiations are highly harmful to our health. Its check and monitoring is very much required, for that he set up a special facility for EMI/EMC at Electronics Quality Development Centre (EQDC) at Gandhinagar (Gujrat Govt.) in 2012, to help electronic instruments industries by taking test support from EMI center at EQDC.
• Ferrite Materials for Microwave application: Ferrites are basically ferromagnetic oxide materials that possess high resistivity and permeability. Dr. Kotnala has been working on ferrite since 1991. He started synthesizing hard ferrite thin films for magneto-optical properties. His experience in ferrite covers from hard ferrite to almost all soft ferrites. An increase in magnetization of 79.39 emu/g had been obtained by doping nano SiO₂ due to the dilution of magnetization of the A-sublattice by nonmagnetic Si⁴⁺ ions in spinel-type LiCd ferrite. Soft ferrites composites with conducting polymers have been explored for microwave absorbing materials.
• Mn-Zn ferrite as a shielding material in microwave X-band: Microwave components (lithium ferrite), shielding materials, Mn-Zn ferrite, for stealth-war airplanes.
• A Ferromagnetic conducting polymer developed for aircraft invisibility by radar (US Patent 2009). A Process for the Preparation of Conducting Organic Ferrimagnetic Composite, India, US Patent – (1362 DEL 2008), 09/06/2008.