Through Plane Networked Graphene Oxide/Polyester Hybrid Thermal Interface Material for Heat Management Applications

ABSTRACT

The role of electronic devices in our lives is increasing rapidly, with more research focusing on miniaturization, creating more demand for thermal interface materials (TIM). Grease-based TIM presently available have good thermal conductivity values, but issues such as contamination, pump-out, and an additional curing step are observed. Fibrous textile substrates are soft and flexible, making them suitable for occupying the asperities between the heat sink and heat-producing devices. However, they are insulating in nature and can be made conductive using conductive fillers such as graphene oxide (GO). In this article, a networked through-plane thermally conductive TIM using the cutting waste of polyester and GO was fabricated. The methodology involved functionalizing the PET substrate and studying its interaction with GO. A networked GO/PET, (N-GOPET) hybrid TIM was fabricated from waste PET with good through-plane heat conduction performance, softness, and cuttability as a promising replacement for grease-based TIM.

KEYWORDS:

• thermal interface materials
• heat conduction performance
• graphene oxide
• electronic device

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education for awarding us a Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/1/2021/TK0/USM/01/4) and Universiti Sains Malaysia for making this study possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Decalaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships, which may be considered as potential competing interests.

Author’s contribution

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Junaid Khan and Mariatti Jaafar. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Junaid Khan and the corresponding author Mariatti Jaafar commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Conceptualization: Junaid Khan and Mariatti Jaafar; Methodology: Junaid Khan and Mariatti Jaafar; Formal analysis and investigation: Junaid Khan Writing – original draft preparation: Junaid Khan; Writing – review and editing: Mariatti Jaafar; Funding acquisition: Mariatti Jaafar; Supervision: Mariatti Jaafar.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15567265.2022.2125857

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education [FRGS/1/2021/TK0/USM/01/4].