Enhanced through-plane thermal conductivity of boron nitride/epoxy composites

A facile strategy was reported to fabricate vertically oriented and densely packed hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN)/epoxy (EP) composites via vacuum filtration followed by slicing up. This route is simple and high-efficient without special treatment and/or chemical modification. A high through-plane thermal conductivity of 9 W/m K was obtained at a h-BN loading of 44 vol% in the composites. Laser flash thermal analyzer (LFA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results indicated that the through-plane thermal conductivity of the composites increased with the fraction of the fillers. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) tests indicated that h-BN microplatelets were mainly vertically oriented in the composites. In addition, as-made composites showed good mechanical strength. Therefore, it has great potential as thermal interface materials, which is very important in the thermal management of electronics, especially in electronic packages where electrical insulation is required.