Enhanced thermal conductivity of epoxy composites filled with silicon carbide nanowires

Dianyu Shen; Zhaolin Zhan; Zhiduo Liu; Yong Cao; Li Zhou; Yuanli Liu; Wen Dai; Kazuhito Nishimura; Chaoyang Li; Cheng-Te Lin; Nan Jiang; Jinhong Yu

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-02929-0

Enhanced thermal conductivity of epoxy composites filled with silicon carbide nanowires

Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 1;7(1):2606. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-02929-0.

Authors

Dianyu Shen^{1

2}, Zhaolin Zhan³, Zhiduo Liu², Yong Cao², Li Zhou⁴, Yuanli Liu⁴, Wen Dai², Kazuhito Nishimura⁵, Chaoyang Li⁶, Cheng-Te Lin², Nan Jiang⁷, Jinhong Yu⁸

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, China.
² Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China.
³ Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, China. zl_zhan@sohu.com.
⁴ College of Materials Science and Engineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, 541004, China.
⁵ Advanced Nano-processing Engineering Lab, Mechanical Systems Engineering, Kogakuin University, Kochi, 780-0805, Japan.
⁶ Research Institute & School of Systems Engineering, Kochi University of Technology, Kami City, Kochi, 782-8502, Japan.
⁷ Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China. jiangnan@nimte.ac.cn.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China. yujinhong@nimte.ac.cn.

Abstract

In this study, we report a facile approach to fabricate epoxy composite incorporated with silicon carbide nanowires (SiC NWs). The thermal conductivity of epoxy/SiC NWs composites was thoroughly investigated. The thermal conductivity of epoxy/SiC NWs composites with 3.0 wt% filler reached 0.449 Wm^-1 K^-1, approximately a 106% enhancement as compared to neat epoxy. In contrast, the same mass fraction of silicon carbide micron particles (SiC MPs) incorporated into epoxy matrix showed less improvement on thermal conduction properties. This is attributed to the formation of effective heat conduction pathways among SiC NWs as well as a strong interaction between the nanowires and epoxy matrix. In addition, the thermal properties of epoxy/SiC NWs composites were also improved. These results demonstrate that we developed a novel approach to enhance the thermal conductivity of the polymer composites which meet the requirement for the rapid development of the electronic devices.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't