Enhanced thermal conductivity for poly(vinylidene fluoride) composites with nano-carbon fillers

Abstract

Polymer composites with high thermal conductivity have recently attracted much attention, along with the rapid development of electronic devices toward higher speeds and performance. Here, we reported a facile method to prepare poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) composites with nano-carbon fillers including zero-dimensional superfullerene (SF), one-dimensional carbon nanotubes (CNT) and two-dimensional graphene sheets (GS) by simple solution blending and compression molding. The effects of these nano-carbon fillers on the thermal conductivity of PVDF composites were systematically investigated. It was found that PVDF composites exhibit a higher thermal conductivity than that of neat PVDF. Among them, the thermal conductivity of PVDF composites with 20 wt% two-dimensional GS reaches a maximum (2.06 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹), which is approximately 10-fold enhancement in comparison to that of the neat PVDF. Such highly thermal conductive PVDF composites may enable some prospective applications in advanced thermal management.