High Thermal Conductivity of Flake Graphite Reinforced Polyethylene Composites Fabricated by the Powder Mixing Method and the Melt-Extruding Process

Zhichun Liu; Runchun Tu; Quanwen Liao; Hanlin Hu; Jinguo Yang; Yan He; Huiguang Bian; Lianxiang Ma; Wei Liu

doi:10.3390/polym10070693

High Thermal Conductivity of Flake Graphite Reinforced Polyethylene Composites Fabricated by the Powder Mixing Method and the Melt-Extruding Process

Polymers (Basel). 2018 Jun 21;10(7):693. doi: 10.3390/polym10070693.

Authors

Zhichun Liu^{1

2}, Runchun Tu³, Quanwen Liao⁴, Hanlin Hu⁵, Jinguo Yang⁶, Yan He⁷, Huiguang Bian⁸, Lianxiang Ma⁹, Wei Liu¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China. zcliu@hust.edu.cn.
² College of Electromechanical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science & Technology, Qingdao 266061, China. zcliu@hust.edu.cn.
³ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China. Turunchun@hust.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China. Liaoquanwen@hust.edu.cn.
⁵ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China. Huhanlin@hust.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China. jg_yang@hust.edu.cn.
⁷ College of Electromechanical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science & Technology, Qingdao 266061, China. heyan_sd@163.com.
⁸ College of Electromechanical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science & Technology, Qingdao 266061, China. bianhuiguang@163.com.
⁹ College of Electromechanical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science & Technology, Qingdao 266061, China. oldhorse@qust.edu.cn.
¹⁰ School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan 430074, China. w_liu@hust.edu.cn.

Abstract

The thermal conductivity of flake graphite (FG) particulates reinforced high density polyethylene (HDPE) composites was systematically investigated under a special dispersion state of FG particles. The effects of particle size, weight filling ratio and proportion of various sizes were discussed in detail. A special composite (15 wt % 500 μm/10 wt % 200 μm/10 wt % 20 μm/5 wt % 2 μm FG + 60 wt % polyethylene (PE)) with a high thermal conductivity about 2.49 W/(m·K) was produced by combining the synergistic effect of several fillers. The component material size distribution was employed to analyze the effect of particle size. And scanning electron microscope (SEM) was adopted to observe the FG network in the composites. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) revealed the good thermal stability of composites. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) indicated that all composites own a similar melting temperature. Sample compression experiment indicated that all composites still exhibit high mechanical strength. Consequently, the easy-making flake graphite reinforced polyethylene composites with a high thermal conductivity would have a wide application in the new material field, such as a thermal interface material, a heat exchanger, voltage cable, etc.

Keywords: composites; flake graphite; polyethylene; synergistic effect; thermal conductivity.

Abstract

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