High Conductivity Pathways Research Articles

Improved Electrochemical Performance Based on Nanostructured SnS2@CoS2\u2013rGO Composite Anode for Sodium-Ion Batteries

A promising anode material composed of SnS2@CoS2 flower-like spheres assembled from SnS2 nanosheets and CoS2 nanoparticles accompanied by reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was fabricated by a facile hydrothermal pathway. The presence of rGO and the combined merits of SnS2 and CoS2 endow the SnS2@CoS2–rGO composite with high conductivity pathways and channels for electrons and with excellent properties as an anode material for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). A high capacity of 514.0 mAh g−1 at a current density of 200 mA g−1 after 100 cycles and a good rate capability can be delivered. The defined structure and good sodium-storage performance of the SnS2@CoS2–rGO composite demonstrate its promising application in high-performance SIBs.

Sulfur-embedded porous carbon nanofiber composites for high stability lithium-sulfur batteries

The porous carbon nanofibers-sulfur (PCNFs-S) composite electrode with micro-mesoporous (<10nm) and meso-macroporous (>10nm) is successfully designed and prepared via the electro-blown spinning technique and thermal treatment. The meso-macroporous structure in the PCNFs-S composite can provide high sulfur content up to 80wt%, while micro-mesoporous affords efficient trapping of polysulfides and inhibits the “shuttle effect”. And the tailored porous fibrous network structure and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the composite facilitate the construction of a high electrical conductive pathway. Therefore, the lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries electrode exhibits high initial discharge capacities as high as 954 and 602.2mAhg−1 at 0.5C and 2C, respectively, and can obtain quite stable capacities of 795 and 601.5mAhg−1 after 350 cycles.

Water Blocks in Tight Formations: The Role of Matrix/Fracture Interaction in Hydrocarbon-Permeability Reduction and Its Implications in the Use of Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques

Summary Hydraulic fracturing is used to obtain economical rates from tight and unconventional formations by increasing the surface area of the reservoir within the flowing distance to a high-conductivity pathway. However, a significant fraction of the fracturing fluid is never recovered, and thus may reduce the hydrocarbon permeability near the fracture. Here, we experimentally mimic the water-invasion process during fracturing, and measure the effective permeability changes in a low-permeability core. Measurements of water flowback and effective permeability as a function of interfacial tension (IFT), flow rate, and shut-in time suggest that water is being held at the fracture face because of the capillary discontinuity (i.e., when the water leaves the matrix and enters a space with minimal capillary pressure). This effect arises from the capillary interaction between the matrix and the fracture, and is akin to the capillary end effect in coreflood experiments. The results show that this effect, although only a laboratory experimental artifact for conventional reservoirs, can be a significant source of effective hydrocarbon-permeability reduction by fracturing-fluid invasion into the formation in unconventional and tight reservoirs.

Facile Growth of Caterpillar-like NiCo2S4 Nanocrystal Arrays on Nickle Foam for High-Performance Supercapacitors.

Ternary cobalt nickel sulfide as a novel and efficient electrode material in supercapacitors has recently gained extensive interests. Herein, we first report a highly conductive caterpillar-like NiCo2S4, composed of NiCo2S4 nanosheet core and nanowire shell grown on Ni foam via a facile and cost-effective chemical liquid process. Growth mechanism of the NiCo2S4 nanosheets@nanowires (NSNWs) structure was also investigated in detail by analyzing time-dependent experimental as well as the amount of additive ammonium fluoride in solution. Furthermore, the electrochemical measurements were performed among three different morphologies of NiCo2S4 including nanosheets, nanosheets@nanoparticles, and NSNWs structure, which were obtained from different reaction stages. Because the NSNWs structure has relatively high electroactive surface area, conductivity, and effective electron transport pathways, the as-prepared NiCo2S4 NSNWs structure comparing with two other morphologies exhibits the maximum specific capacity of 1777 F/g at 1 A/g and the highest capacitance retention (83% after 3000 cycles) at a high scan rate of 10 A/g with a mass loading density of 4.0 mg/cm2. These results indicate that the NiCo2S4 NSNWs structure has great potential in supercapacitors.

Polyvinyl Alcohol-derived carbon nanofibers/carbon nanotubes/sulfur electrode with honeycomb-like hierarchical porous structure for the stable-capacity lithium/sulfur batteries

Abstract The honeycomb-like hierarchical porous carbon nanofibers (PCNFs)-carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-sulfur(S) composite electrode is successfully desgined and prepared through ball-milling and heating method, in which the PCNFs are carbonized from fibers in the membrane composed of Polyvinyl Alcohol and Polytetrafluoroethylene by electro-blown spinning technology. The prepared PCNFs-CNTs-S composite are regarded as cathode for lithium-sulfur battery. The tailored porous structure and CNTs in the composite facilitate construction of a high electrical conductive pathway and store more S/polysulfides, and the dissoluble loss of intermediate S species in electrolyte can also be restrained because of acidized PVA-based porous carbon nanofibers. Meanwhile, the porous strcucture and CNTs can effectively alleviate volume changes in battery cycling process. Moreover, the presence of LiNO 3 in electrolyte helps the electrochemical oxidation of Li 2 S and LiNO 3 -derived surface film effectively suppresses the migration of soluble polysulfide to the Li anode surface. Therefore, the obtained PCNFs-CNTs-S cathode exhibits excellent performance in Li-S battery with a high initial discharge capacity as high as 1302.9 mAh g −1 , and super stable capacity retention with 809.1 mAh g −1 after 300 cycles at the current density of 837.5 mA g −1 (0.5 C). And the rate capability of PCNFs-CNTs-S electrode is much better than those of CNTs-S and PCNFs-S electrodes.

Geometrical evaluation of T-shaped high conductive pathway with thermal contact resistance for cooling of heat-generating medium

The present work employs Constructal Design to numerically evaluate the geometrical configuration which facilitates the heat transfer through a T-shaped conductive pathway and heat-generating volumetric medium with low thermal conductivity. It is inserted a third material placed between the conductive pathway and the heat-generating medium which acts as thermal contact resistance. The objective function is to minimize the maximum excess of temperature over the entire system (materials with high and low thermal conductivity and thermal contact resistance), i.e., reduce the hot spots of a system with uniform heat generation. The total volume is fixed, however the volume of the high thermal conductivity material as well as the amount of the material that represents the thermal contact resistance can vary. Considering all possible geometries the configuration was optimized by varying the lengths and widths of the two branches forming the “T’’, keeping fixed the aspect ratio of the area of the conductive material with respect to the total area of the body. For the three times optimized geometry, the presence of thermal contact resistance changed the optimal length and width ratios in nearly 16% and 12% in comparison with optimal ratios achieved for the case with perfect thermal contact.

HOMO-LUMO coupling: the fourth rule for highly effective molecular rectifiers.

Three rules for creating highly effective unimolecular rectifiers that utilize asymmetric anchoring groups have been proposed by Van Dyck and Ratner [Ratner et al., Nano Lett., 2015, 15, 1577-1584]. This study investigates their proposed rectification mechanism in a functionalised azafullerene system (4TPA-C60) and identifies a fourth rule. NEGF-DFT shows that 4TPA-C60 fulfills the three design rules and finds that a saturated bridge is not required to fulfil the third rule, contrary to previous belief. Instead a twisted-π bridge decouples the donor and acceptor states whilst still providing a high conductance pathway. The molecular junction has a calculated rectification ratio of 145 at a bias of ±1 V and the U-type rectification mechanism is driven by the pinning of the HOMO to the LUMO when the device is forward biased, but not when reverse biased. The switching behaviour is a result of a charge dipole forming at different interfaces for different bias directions. An additional design rule is thus proposed: charge transport should allow bias dependent coupling of filled to unfilled states. The findings in this work not only help in understanding charge transport in molecular rectifiers, but also have wider implications for the design of molecular resonant tunneling devices.

Optimization of a Suspended, Hot Micro-Structure for Better Energy Efficiency and Improved Performance

Joule heating is utilized in many MEMS devices that serve as thermal sensors or actuators. The main participating element of these devices is a structure, suspended from the substrate to achieve high temperatures without wasting much electric power. Metal oxide micro gas sensors are a significant category of this type, where an embedded microheater raises the sensor temperature to facilitate interaction of the target gas with the sensing film surface. More importantly, micro thermal conductivity gas detectors (TCD) depend solely on the heat transfer from a suspended micro heater to detect concentration variations in the gas medium. In all these examples energy loss could be considerable and a significant concern for low power demanding applications, such as portable compact devices. Many applications in this field, such as microGC detector, require a new generation of fast micro electro-thermal detector that aims at lower mili-watt power consumption range while having superior sensitivity. We have tried developing 100×2 µm microbridge heaters made of doped polysilicon that offer a great thermal performance as a TCD. Design improvements via try-and-error fabrication approach for MEMS devices is expensive, therefore computer simulation can be considered a better pathway towards optimizations in this field. The challenge, however, is the lack of accuracy in simulations due to complex three dimensional geometry, multi-physics phenomena, and simplifications involved in the molding. We have developed a novel comprehensive computer model that addresses all these issues by directly solving coupled system of governing equations in a large domain that includes all solid and gas participating medium. It was shown that the model was able to predict the response of a thermal conductivity detector microbridge with less than 10% error in nitrogen gas. Here we present the insight provided by the modeling and apply it towards optimization of the microbridge design. Simulation results show that temperature distribution in a heated suspended micro element is highly non uniform, also a considerable amount of heat is conducted to the cool substrate through solid material. Solid constituents have relatively high thermal conductivity and solid pathways of heat don’t contribute to gas sensing. Therefore, a design that provides more thermal isolation for the heated element will further improve the efficiency.As there are higher limits for the temperature of a material and, it means the whole temperature distribution is limited by the maximum values of the non-uniform temperature distribution. From this aspect it will be beneficial if the temperature distribution can be more uniform over the heater, although a fully uniform distribution cannot be achieved because of fast conduction in solid material. To improve the above issues, we suggest geometrical optimizations while keeping all strong aspects of the current technology such as small dimensions, low power consumption, great surface to volume ratio and high aspect ratio. The recommendation includes having wider anchors made out of same electrically conductive material as the microbridge center, and suspended from the substrate as shown in figure 1. The idea is that this wider part will have several folds less electrical resistance than the thin bridge due to the larger cross section. Therefor it provides electrical connection while doesn’t contribute to the power consumption; almost all the heat will be dissipated on the thin microbridge. The thermal resistance of the solid structure in this design is much higher and the wider anchor are suspended from substrate and don’t participate in heating. Thus a larger portion of heat will transfer through gas medium. The performance and energy consumption of the new design was verified through the developed simulation too. Figure 2 shows the resulting temperature distribution and heat generation on the suspended element, which shows significant improvement over the previous design. Figure 1

Collagen-biomorphic porous carbon nanofiber monoliths: Biosilicification-assisted sustainable synthesis and application in Li-S battery

Monolithic carbon has been synthesized via a sustainable biomimetic route utilizing intrafibrillar silicified collagen sponge as precursor and morphogenesis template. The mineralized silica in the biohybrid prevents collapse of the carbon during pyrolysis. Upon biosilica removal results show that the carbon monoliths inherit the porous fiber structure of the mother collagen. The carbon nanofiber framework facilitates the construction of a high electrical conductive pathway, while the internal spaces developed among the intertwined fibrillar network and pores within nanofiber walls offer room for sulfur storage. The as-obtained carbon-sulfur cathode exhibits an accessible discharge capacity approaching 800[Formula: see text]mAh g[Formula: see text] in Li–S battery.

Critical dual roles of carbon coating in H2Ti12O25 for cylindrical hybrid supercapacitors

The cylindrical hybrid supercapacitors are fabricated using pristine and different coating amounts of carbon (1.5, 3, 4.5, and 6 wt%) coated H2Ti12O25 negative electrode and activated carbon positive electrode to investigate the effect of carbon coating on the electrochemical performances of hybrid supercapacitors. The electrochemical performances of the hybrid supercapacitors indicate that the 4.5 wt% carbon coating layer (approximately 3.09 nm) exhibit the superior electrochemical performances. Moreover, the carbon plays an important role in suppressing the swollen phenomenon. These performances can be attributed to the dual roles of carbon coating, including physical and chemical obstacle and high conductivity pathways. Therefore, we suggest that the carbon-coated H2Ti12O25 negative electrode can be applied to various energy storage devices.

Constructal design of I-shaped high conductive pathway for cooling a heat-generating medium considering the thermal contact resistance

This study applies the constructal design method to obtain the configuration that provides the easier access to the heat flowing through an I-shaped high conductive pathway which is inserted into a volumetric medium with low thermal conductivity and heat-generating. A third material separates the high conductive material from the heat-generating medium representing the thermal contact resistance. The body is cooled by an isothermal heat sink with low temperature which is located in the rim. The objective consists in discovering configurations that facilitates the heat flow diminishing the maximal excess of temperature independent of the place where it is located. The total volume and the volume of high conductivity material are fixed, but their aspect ratio can vary. The results indicate that the thermal contact resistance is larger when thermal conductivity of the high conductivity material and the thermal conductivity of the material that represents the thermal contact resistance are smaller. It can increase the maximal dimensionless excess of temperature and the optimal aspect ratio by approximately 56% and 17% respectively. In addition, varying the external ratio can increase the maximum dimensionless temperature almost 20% taking into account the thermal contact resistance. However, changes in this ratio had almost no effect on the optimal geometry of the I-shaped high thermal conductivity pathway.

Constructal design for “+” shaped high conductivity pathways over a square body

A heat generating model with “+” shaped high conductivity pathway over a square body is built in this paper. For the specified areas of the high conductivity pathway and square body, the constructal optimizations of the square body with single and multilevel “+” shaped high conductivity pathways are carried out by taking minimum dimensionless peak temperature as optimization objective. The optimal constructs of the “+” shaped high conductivity pathways and triple minimum dimensionless peak temperature of the square body are obtained. The results show that the minimum dimensionless peak temperature of the square body with multilevel “+” shaped high conductivity pathway is reduced by 75.79% compared with that with X shaped one. The heat transfer performance of the square body is obviously improved by adopting the multilevel “+” shaped high conductivity pathway, and it can be further improved by increasing the dimensionless thermal conductivity and area fraction of the high conductivity material. Thermal stress performance should be also considered in the constructal design of a heat generating body. The results obtained in this paper can provide some guidelines for the designs of electronic devices.

Charge transport and exciton dissociation in organic solar cells consisting of dipolar donors mixed withC70

We investigate dipolar donor materials mixed with a ${\mathrm{C}}_{70}$ acceptor in an organic photovoltaic (OPV) cell. Dipolar donors that have donor-acceptor-acceptor (d-a-a\ensuremath{'}) structure result in high conductivity pathways due to close coupling between neighboring molecules in the mixed films. We analyze the charge transfer properties of the dipolar donor:${\mathrm{C}}_{70}$ mixtures and corresponding neat donors using a combination of time-resolved electroluminescence from intermolecular polaron pair states and conductive tip atomic force microscopy, from which we infer that dimers of the d-a-a\ensuremath{'} donors tend to form a continuous network of nanocrystalline clusters within the blends. Additional insights are provided by quantum-mechanical calculations of hole transfer coupling and hopping rates between donor molecules using nearest-neighbor donor packing motifs taken from crystal structural data. The approximation using only nearest-neighbor interactions leads to good agreement between donor hole hopping rates and the conductive properties of the donor:${\mathrm{C}}_{70}$ blends. This represents a significant simplification from requiring details of the nano- and mesoscale morphologies of thin films to estimate their electronic characteristics. Using these dipolar donors, we obtain a maximum power conversion efficiency of $9.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5%$ under 1 sun, AM1.5G simulated illumination for an OPV comprised of an active layer containing a dipolar donor mixed with ${\mathrm{C}}_{70}$.

The natural emergence of asymmetric tree-shaped pathways for cooling of a non-uniformly heated domain

Here, we show that the peak temperature on a non-uniformly heated domain can be decreased by embedding a high-conductivity insert in it. The trunk of the high-conductivity insert is in contact with a heat sink. The heat is generated non-uniformly throughout the domain or concentrated in a square spot of length scale 0.1 L0, where L0 is the length scale of the non-uniformly heated domain. Peak and average temperatures are affected by the volume fraction of the high-conductivity material and by the shape of the high-conductivity pathways. This paper uncovers how varying the shape of the symmetric and asymmetric high-conductivity trees affects the overall thermal conductance of the heat generating domain. The tree-shaped high-conductivity inserts tend to grow toward where the heat generation is concentrated in order to minimize the peak temperature, i.e., in order to minimize the resistances to the heat flow. This behaviour of high-conductivity trees is alike with the root growth of the plants and trees. They also tend to grow towards sunlight, and their roots tend to grow towards water and nutrients. This paper uncovers the similarity between biological trees and high-conductivity trees, which is that trees should grow asymmetrically when the boundary conditions are non-uniform. We show here even though all the trees have the same objectives (minimum flow resistance), their shape should not be the same because of the variation in boundary conditions. To sum up, this paper shows that there is a high-conductivity tree design corresponding to minimum peak temperature with fixed constraints and conditions. This result is in accord with the constructal law which states that there should be an optimal design for a given set of conditions and constraints, and this design should be morphed in order to ensure minimum flow resistances as conditions and constraints change.

Evolution in the Design of V-Shaped Highly Conductive Pathways Embedded in a Heat-Generating Piece

This paper presents the evolution of architecture of high conductivity pathways embedded into a heat generating body on the basis of Constructal theory. The main objective is to introduce new geometries for the highly conductive pathways, precisely configurations shaped as V. Four types of V-shaped inserts, evolving from “V1” to “V4,” have been comparatively considered. Geometric optimization of design is conducted to minimize the peak temperature of the heat generating piece. Many ideas emerged from this work: first of all, the numerical results demonstrated that the V-shaped pathways remarkably surpass the performance of some basic configurations already mentioned in literature, i.e., “I and X-shaped” pathways. Furthermore, the evolution of configurations from V1 to V4 resulted in a gradual reduction of the hot spot temperature, according to the principle of “optimal distribution of imperfections” that characterizes the constructal law.

Carbon Nanostructures (CNS): Highly Conductive Matrix for Lithium Ion Battery Electrodes

Traditional conductive carbon and polymer binder plays an important role for fabrication of lithium ion battery electrodes. Conductive carbon provides conductive pathways between the electrode particles specially for low electrical conductivity electrode materials and current collector,at the same time, the binder helps to provide mechanical integrity for electrode material. In this work, carbon nanostructres are presented as a highly conductive matrix material for fabrication of electrode without using any polymer binder. CNS consists of highly crosslinked and covalently bonded carbon nanotubes and forms a free standing films after reassembling from a CNS dispersed solution. CNS have high surface area, high electrical conductivity, low cost and environmently benign synthesis process. CNS/LiFePO4 cathode is fabricated using a facile process using water/ethanol mixture. No organic solvent is used for electrode fabrication. Scanning electron micrograms of the CNS/LiFePO4 electrode shows that LiFeO4 electrode particles are entraped by the entangled carbon nanostructures and provide high electrical conductivity pathways. LiFePO4/CNS electrode shows high electrical conductivity of 9.1 S/cm compared to the 0.4 S/cm for conventional LiFePO4/Carbon electrode. Cyclic voltammetry results show that CNS/LiFePO4 has low polarization potential compared to C/LiFePO4. This is attributed due to highly conductive pathways offered by the CNS. Charge-discharge performance of the CNS/LiFePO4 in half cell demonstrated improved capacity retention at high discharge rates.

Rational Design of Graphene-Based Aerogels for High-Performance Supercapacitors

Recently, graphene (GN) aerogels with porous three-dimensional (3D) structures have attracted intensive attention because of their ultrahigh specific surface area, high conductivity and multiple electronic transport pathways. Up to date, a variety of strategies coupled with various chemical or physical cross-linkers, such as organic binders [1], ion linkages [2] and ion coordination [3], have been applied to fabricate 3D graphene gels. However, most of the cross-linkers (e.g. organic reagents and metal ions) used are environmentally harmful or expensive, and, more importantly, unexpected impurities and elements could be introduced in the resultants. On the other hand, although graphene electrode can fundamentally provide a specific capacitance up to 550 F/g [4], the specific capacity achieved so far is still far from the theoretical value, which is largely limited by the unexpected restacking of graphene sheets to greatly reduce its available surface. Various spacers, such as carbonaceous materials [5] and metal oxides [6], have been employed into the GN to inhibit the restacking and improve capacitive performance. However, graphene/metal oxide composites usually suffer a low rate performance and poor stability, and the performance of graphene/carbon was still unsatisfied due to the low specific capacity of spacers.Herein, we have demonstrated a novel, simple, low-cost and green approach to produce graphene-based aerogels via the self-assembly of graphene oxide sheets in the alcohols. The as-prepared aerogles have shown special internal structures formed by self-assemble graphene sheets, whereby both macro- and mesopores for ionic transport have been achieved. In order to improve the electrochemical performance of the graphene aerogels, we have introduced ordered porous carbon (PC) with high specific capacity as an effective spacer to rationally design GN/PC aerogels [7]. The ordered porous carbon (PC) with high specific surface area and good capacitance was introduced as a spacer to efficiently inhibit the restacking of graphene (GN) sheets, which has significantly enhanced the specific surface area and facilitated the transmission of ions and electrons in the as-synthesized porous hybrid structure. The all-state-solid electrode fabricated by the as-prepared GN/PC aerogels presented excellent flexibility, and exhibited high specific capacity and good rate performance in polyvinyl acetate/KOH gel electrolyte. Implication of the specific capacities of ~187 F g-1 at 1 A g-1 and 140 F g-1 at 10 A g-1 suggests that the GN/PC aerogels promised great potentials in the development of lightweight high-performance flexible energy storage devices.

Geometric optimization of X-shaped cavities and pathways according to Bejan’s theory: Comparative analysis

This paper applies constructal design to study the geometry of a X-shaped isothermal cavity and a X-shaped high conductivity pathway that penetrate into a solid conducting wall. The objective is to minimize the maximal excess of temperature of the whole system, i.e. the hot spots, independent of where they are located. There is uniform heat generation on the solid body, which is insulated on the external perimeter. The total volume and the cavity volume, as well as the high conductivity material volume, are fixed, but the geometric lengths and thickness of both X-shaped configurations can vary. The emerged optimal configurations and performance are reported graphically and numerically. The results indicate that the increase of the complexity of the geometry can facilitate the access of heat currents and improve the thermal performance. The degree of freedom L1/L0 proved to be significant on the performance of the X-shaped isothermal cavity, e.g. the once optimized ratio (L1/L0)o increases approximately 10% as the area fraction ϕ increases from ϕ=0.05 to 0.3. As for the X-shaped pathway case, it has been demonstrated that the dimensionless thermal conductivity of the path k̃p and the area fraction ϕ have a strong effect on the performance and configuration of the X-shaped blades: the twice minimized θmax,mm decreases approximately 70% as k̃p increases from 30 to 300 and it decreases approximately 84% as ϕ augments from 0.01 to 0.2.Furthermore, the X-shaped conductive pathways configuration increases its performance monotonically with the augmentation of the pathways thermal conductivity: in correspondence to the highest possible value of k̃p, the X-shaped conductive pathways present approximately the same heat removal capacity of the X-shaped cavities optimized in the first part of the paper.

Phi and Psi shaped conductive routes for improved cooling in a heat generating piece

Because the cost and occupancy of high conductivity materials are the elements of major concern, searching for a better design of high conductivity pathways embedded into a heat generating body is a formidable challenge. The central goal of this paper is to show that the competition still continues. To accomplish this, two types of high conductivity pathways (inserts) with ‘Phi’ or ‘Psi’ shape are introduced. Although ‘Phi’ and ‘Psi’ shaped inserts are classified as ‘tree’ shaped configurations, the curled parts used in those configurations make them different with the tree-shaped configurations already mentioned in literature (such as T, H, I and X-shaped configurations). It is shown that the ‘Phi’ and ‘Psi’ configurations are superior in reducing the peak temperature of the piece. For example, numerical results show that, by utilizing the so-called configurations of conductive pathways, the maximum temperature can be reduced by 50% compared with an X-shaped pathway (the latest tree-shaped configuration introduced in literature), with the same amount of high conductivity materials.

Fork-shaped highly conductive pathways for maximum cooling in a heat generating piece

In engineering practice, the space occupied by high conductivity materials together with the cost are the two elements of major concern. Therefore, seeking for more efficient designs of high conductivity pathways (‘inserts’), embedded into a heat generating body constitutes a formidable challenge. The main idea of this paper is to introduce new patterns for the highly conductive pathways, called ‘fork-shaped’ configurations. Essentially, two types of fork-shaped pathways, ‘F1’ and ‘F2’ are introduced. Numerical results demonstrate that, these two configurations of highly conductive pathways, remarkably surpass the latest configurations reported in the literature, with the same amount of high conductivity materials. It is further confirmed that the ‘peak’ temperature can be reduced by 41% and 46% by using fork-shaped pathways of ‘F1’ type, and ‘F2’ type, respectively, when compared with the base X-shaped inserts. To highlight the discovery found in this paper, it is proved that if only about one third of the high conductivity material used for an X-shaped insert are used for the fork-shaped insert, the heat generating body operates at the same level of peak temperature associated with the new configurations.