Graphene−Perfluoroalkoxy Nanocomposite with High Through-Plane Thermal Conductivity Fabricated by Hot-Pressing

Abstract

With the rapid development of electronics and portable devices, polymer nanocomposites with high through-plane thermal conductivity (TC) are urgently needed. In this work, we fabricated graphene nanosheets−perfluoroalkoxy (GNs−PFA) composite sheets with high through-plane TCs via hot-pressing followed by mechanical machining. When the GNs content exceeded 10 wt%, GNs were vertically aligned in the PFA matrix, and the through-plane TCs of nanocomposites were 10−15 times higher than their in-plane TCs. In particular, the composite with 30 wt% GNs exhibited a through-plane TC of 25.57 W/(m·K), which was 9700% higher than that of pure PFA. The composite with 30 wt% GNs was attached to the surface of a high-power light-emitting diode (LED) to assess its heat-dissipation capability. The composite with vertically aligned GNs lowered the LED surface temperature by approximately 16 °C compared with pure PFA. Our facile, low-cost method allows for the large-scale production of GNs−PFA nanocomposites with high through-plane TCs, which can be used in various thermal-management applications.

Keywords

• thermal conductivity
• nanocomposite
• graphene
• alignment
• hot-pressing
• perfluoroalkoxy