3D hierarchical graphene-based composite for ultra-high heat-conducting film

Abstract

In order to pursue lightness and portability, modern electronic devices usually use a compact layout to place various components, but this highly integrated design increases the heat density of the device and causes heat accumulation. Excessive heat accumulation will reduce the reliability of the device and even cause thermal failure. The advantages of light weight, easy processing and low cost of polymer-based thermally conductive composites have become main concerns of modern thermal management materials, but the low thermal conductivity (TC) has seriously limited their application. Here, 3D hierarchical anisotropic oriented graphene-based composites with high TC are fabricated by layer-by-layer self-assembling of one-dimensional carboxylated cellulose nanofibers (CNF–C) and poly dopamine modified nickel particle-coated two-dimensional graphene nanosheets (PDA-Ni@GNS). Owing to the well-defined flaky packing layers and the hydrogen bonding, the composite exhibits not only sufficiently high in-plane TC of 28.8 W m−1 K−1 and tensile strength of 124 MPa, but also exhibits hydrophobic property. A generalized four-parameter model (FPM) is found to reasonably predict the entire CPU temperature evolution versus time. This work presents a facile strategy for constructing 3D hierarchical interfacial structure to obtain excellent versatility of anisotropic thermal management composites.