• Composites Research
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.431-438
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• 2022

Efficient heat dissipation in current electronics is crucial to ensure the best performance and lifespan of the devices along with the users' safety. Materials with high thermal conductivity are often used to dissipate the generated heat from the electronics to the surroundings. For this purpose, polymer composites have been attracted much attention as they possess advantages rooted from both polymer matrix and thermally conductive filler. In order to meet the thermal conductivity required by relevant industries, composites with high filler loadings (i.e., >60 vol%) have been fabricated. At such high filler loadings, however, composites lose benefits originated from the polymer matrix. To achieve high thermal conductivity at a relatively low filler loading, therefore, constructing the heat conduction pathway by controlling filler structure within the composites may represent a judicious strategy. To this end, this review introduces several recent approaches to manufacturing heat dissipating materials with high thermal conductivity by manipulating thermally conductive filler structures in polymer composites.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2021

In order to develop an integrated heat dissipating material and gas barrier film for electronics, new polymer was designed and synthesized for preparing composites containing hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) filler. Depending on the size and content of the hBN filler, both thermal conductivity and oxygen transmission rate can be adjusted. The composite achieved a high thermal conductivity of 28.0 W·m-1·K-1 at most and the oxygen transmission rate was decreased by 62% compared to that of the filler free matrix. Effective filler aspect ratios could be estimated by comparing thermal conductivity and oxygen transmission rate with values predicted by theoretical models. Discrepancy on the aspect ratios extracted from thermal conductivity and oxygen transmission rate comparisons was also discussed.