Thermal conductivity enhancement of epoxy adhesive using graphene sheets as additives

• Thermal adhesive with graphene sheet, graphite nanoflake and powder were tested.
• Graphene sheet can effectively enhance the thermal conductivity of epoxy matrix.
• It is about 4.01 W m−1 K−1 with the maximum loading of graphene sheet at wt 10.1%.

Graphene-epoxy thermal conductive adhesive was obtained using few-layer graphene sheets as additives which were fabricated by a re-expansion and exfoliation method. The experimental results show that graphene sheets can effectively enhance the thermal conductivity of epoxy matrix, with 4.01 W m−1 K−1 for the maximum filling loading of weight 10.10%, which is enhanced by more than 22 times of the pure epoxy resin, about 2.2 times higher than that of the same resin with the maximum weight 16.81% filled with graphite nanoflakes, and approximately 2.4 times higher than that of the same resin with the maximum weight 44.3% filled with the natural graphite powder.