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Enhancement of thermal conductivity in polymer composites by maximizing surface-contact area of polymer-filler interface

  • Vijendra Kumar , Abhishek Barnwal , Rajesh K. Shukla and Jyoti Shakya ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: May 30, 2022
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Journal of Polymer Engineering
From the journal Journal of Polymer Engineering Volume 42 Issue 8

Abstract

In this article we discuss in detail the effective approaches to enhance the thermal conductivity in polymer composites. Numerical simulations show that maximizing interfacial area between filler and polymer enhances very significantly the effective thermal conductivity in composites. We show that among the different geometries thermal conductivity is high for those geometries for which the ratio of surface-area to volume is high. For fillers of a particular geometry, by maximizing its surface area without changing the volume fraction of the metallic filler, the effective thermal conductivity increases. Thus, the interfacial area between filler and polymer plays an important role in the enhancement of thermal conductivity. It is also observed that as this interfacial area increases, increase in effective thermal conductivity follows from linear to the logarithmic growth. It should be noted that to inherit the polymer properties there is a restriction on the upper bound of volume fraction of the fillers. The current study brings out an important step in this direction. Our results are technologically very important in designing composite polymers for better heat conduction and are very cost-effective. This study also provides a connection between the bulk and the surface area in effective determination of the thermal conductivity.

Keywords: composites; filler contact; polymer; thermal conductivity
Corresponding author: Jyoti Shakya, Department of Physical Sciences, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore 560012, India; and Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune 411008, India, E-mail:

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: None declared.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/polyeng-2022-0005).

Received: 2022-01-26
Accepted: 2022-04-01
Published Online: 2022-05-30
Published in Print: 2022-09-27

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/polyeng-2022-0005
Keywords for this article
composites; filler contact; polymer; thermal conductivity

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Material properties
  3. Research progress of low dielectric constant polymer materials
  4. Natural rubber reinforced with super-hydrophobic multiwalled carbon nanotubes: obvious improved abrasive resistance and enhanced thermal conductivity
  5. Epoxy resin/graphene nanoplatelets composites applied to galvanized steel with outstanding microwave absorber performance
  6. Enhancement of thermal conductivity in polymer composites by maximizing surface-contact area of polymer-filler interface
  7. Dynamic characterization of the magnetomechanical properties of off axis anisotropic magnetorheological elastomer
  8. Investigation of optical and biocompatible properties of polyethylene glycol-aspirin loaded commercial pure titanium for cardiovascular device applications
  9. Polylactic acid effectively reinforced with reduced graphitic oxide
  10. Preparation and assembly
  11. Assembled hybrid films based on sepiolite, phytic acid, polyaspartic acid and Fe3+ for flame-retardant cotton fabric
  12. Fabrication, characterization, and performance of poly (aryl ether nitrile) flat sheet ultrafiltration membranes with polyvinyl pyrrolidone as additives
  13. Synthesis of composite membranes from polyacrylonitrile/carbon resorcinol/formaldehyde xerogels: gamma effect study, characterization and ultrafiltration of salted oily wastewater
  14. Chitosan nanoparticles encapsulated into PLA/gelatin fibers for bFGF delivery
  15. Engineering and Processing
  16. Stable photoluminescent electrospun CdSe/CdS quantum dots-doped polyacrylonitrile composite nanofibers
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