Thermal Transport in Graphene-Polymer Nanocomposites

MC Wang and D Galpaya and ZB Lai and YN Xu and C Yan, FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SMART MATERIALS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY IN ENGINEERING, 8793, 87931O (2013).

DOI: 10.1117/12.2026748

Graphene-polymer nanocomposites have attracted considerable attention due to their unique properties, such as high thermal conductivity (similar to 3000 W mK(-1)), mechanical stiffness (similar to 1 TPa) and electronic transport properties. Relatively, the thermal performance of graphene-polymer composites has not been well investigated. The major technical challenge is to understand the interfacial thermal transport between graphene nanofiller and polymer matrix at small material length scale. To this end, we conducted molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the thermal transport in graphene-polyethylene nanocomposite. The influence of functionalization with hydrocarbon chains on the interfacial thermal conductivity was studied, taking into account of the effects of model size and thermal conductivity of graphene. The results are considered to contribute to development of new graphene-polymer nanocomposites with tailored thermal properties.

Return to Publications page