Microstructural welding engineering of carbon nanotube/polydimethylsiloxane nanocomposites with improved interfacial thermal transport

Abstract

Carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced polymer nanocomposites with high thermal conductivity show a promising prospect in thermal management of next-generation electronic devices due to their excellent mechanical adaptability, outstanding processability, and superior flexibility. However, interfacial thermal resistance between individual CNT significantly hinders the further improvement in thermal conductivity of CNT-reinforced nanocomposites. Herein, an interfacial welding strategy is reported to construct graphitic structure welded CNT (GS-w-CNT) networks. Notably, the obtained GS-w-CNT/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nanocomposite with a GS loading of 4.75 wt% preserves a high thermal conductivity of 5.58 W m−1 K−1 with a 410% enhancement as compared to a pure CNT/PDMS nanocomposite. Molecular dynamics simulations are utilized to elucidate the effect of interfacial welding on the heat transfer behavior, revealing that the GS welding degree plays an important role in reducing both phonon scattering in the GS-w-CNT structure and interfacial thermal resistance at the interfaces between CNT. The unique welding strategy provides a new route to optimize the thermal transport performance in filler reinforced polymer nanocomposites, promoting their applications in next-generation microelectronic devices.