Magnetic enhancement of thermal conductivity in copper–carbon nanotube composites produced by electroless plating, freeze drying, and spark plasma sintering

Abstract

A carbon nanotube and copper composite was synthesized using electroless plating and freeze-drying for green processing, and spark plasma sintering for densification. A magnetic field of 1T was applied during the freeze-drying process to align the carbon nanotubes along the main axis. Results show that the magnetization process enhanced the alignment and thermal conductivity properties of the final Cu–CNT product (up to 386% in one example), but the properties were lowered overall due to interfacial bonding and particle mixing difficulties, with the results being 5–15% of the thermal conductivity of pure copper.