Investigation on the fabrication and mechanism of thermally conductive bismaleimide composites with low dielectric constant via a branched crosslink structure

Abstract

In order to address the challenges associated with the low mechanical strength and inadequate thermal conductivity of bismaleimide resin(BMI), trifunctional maleimide (TMI) was synthesized by reacting toluene diisocyanate (TDI trimer) with maleic anhydride (MA) in this study and reacted with diallyl bisphenol A (DBA) and BMI to prepare BMI-TMI resin with a micro-branching structure. This well-designed micro-branching structure resulted in an 8.8 % decrease in the dielectric constant by increasing the free volume of BMI. Additionally, the micro-branching structure endowed BMI resin with improved mechanical properties, as evidenced by a 140 % increase in bending strength and a 149 % increase in impact strength of the cured product. Similarly, utilizing the free volume in micro-branched polymers to construct voids in molecular chain segments facilitates better dispersion of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) thermal conductive fillers, forming a continuous thermal conductive network and providing a high-speed channel for phonon transport, thereby significantly improving the thermal conductivity of the composite material.