Abstract
The development of high thermally conductive polymer composites with low filler content remains challenging in the field of thermal interface materials (TIMs). Herein, we fabricated a series of flexible fiber membranes (TMMFM) with high thermally conductive based on thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and acidified multiwalled carbon nanotubes (a-MWCNTs) via electrospinning and ultrasonic anchoring method. The SEM and TEM results demonstrated that the a-MWCNTs aligned along the fiber orientation in the membrane and anchored on the membrane surface strongly, which can establish the heat conduction path both in the horizontal and vertical directions. With the incorporation of 10 wt% a-MWCNTs, the horizontal direction (λ∥) and vertical direction (λ⊥) thermal conductivity value of TMMFM-5 was 3.60 W/mK and 1.79 W/mK, respectively, being 18 times and 10 times higher compared to pure TPU fiber membranes. Furthermore, the TMMFM maintained favorable flexibility of the TPU matrix because the small amount of a-MWCNTs only slightly hinders the mobility of the TPU molecular chain. The performance of the obtained TMMFM unveils their potential as a promising choice of flexible TIMs.
Highlights
Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is widely used in the electronic industry owing to its outstanding chemical resistance, excellent flexibility, elasticity and processability [1,2,3,4].TPU has great application potential in thermal interface materials (TIMs), which play a crucial role in efficient thermal management [5,6,7,8,9]
Inspired by Guan’s work, we studied the incorporation of a facile electrospinning technique with the ultrasonic anchoring method to fabricate thermally conductive and flexible fiber membranes based on a-multiwalled CNTs (MWCNTs) and TPU, which greatly improved the heat conduction path both in the horizontal and vertical directions
All the results indicate that the surfaces of a-MWCNTs are rich in −OH and −COOH functional groups
Summary
Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is widely used in the electronic industry owing to its outstanding chemical resistance, excellent flexibility, elasticity and processability [1,2,3,4].TPU has great application potential in thermal interface materials (TIMs), which play a crucial role in efficient thermal management [5,6,7,8,9]. The intrinsic low thermal conductivity (λ) of TPU (~0.2 W/mK [10]) has restricted its further application in TIMs. In order to improve the polymer’s thermal transport property, incorporating it with inorganic high thermally conductive fillers is considered one of the most effective methods [11,12,13,14]. Zhu et al [18] reported that the λ value increased by 71.7% in geopolymer-based composites when 5 vol% SiO2 -CNTs was added. The reported λ values of CNT-based composites remain below expectations. This might be ascribed to the aggregation and disorientation of CNTs, which
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