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Enhanced thermal conductivity and electrically insulating of polymer composites

  • Composites & nanocomposites
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Abstract

Highly thermally conductive but electrically insulating polymer composites play an increasingly important role in thermal management applications due to their features of easy processing and lightweight. Herein, a unique segregated network, which consists of graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) and boron nitride fibers (BNF), was constructed in polypropylene (PP)-based composites via two-screw extrusion. The thermal conductivity and electrical insulation characteristic of the composites could be well controlled by adjusting the content and size of GNP and BNF. When PP was filled with 9wt% GNP and 30wt% short BNF, the highest thermal conductivity of 1.32 W/(m·K) was achieved in this work, which is about six times higher than the value of neat PP, while remained a good electrical insulating (as low as 2.98 × 10−9 S/m). It proposed that the unique segregated network, where the BNF play as a bridge to connect the scattered GNP, could benefit for phonons transmission but effectively interrupt electron conduction. Our work provides a facile method to design and fabricate the highly thermally conductive but electrically insulating composites applied in thermal management materials.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51601019, 51705085), Foundation for Distinguished Young Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong, China (2016KQNCX043), and the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2014A010105042, 2017A010102021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials and Energy, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, People’s Republic of China

    Ziwei Xu, Yirong Chen, Jingjing Zhang, Shijun Huang, Anfu Chen, Xiaoling Fu, Fei Wu & Peng Zhang

  2. School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, People’s Republic of China

    Xiang Chen

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  1. Ziwei Xu
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  2. Yirong Chen
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  3. Xiang Chen
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Correspondence to Jingjing Zhang.

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Xu, Z., Chen, Y., Chen, X. et al. Enhanced thermal conductivity and electrically insulating of polymer composites. J Mater Sci 56, 4225–4238 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-020-05530-5

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