Thermal Conductivity Pathway Research of Graphene and Copper Powder in Epoxy Resin
摘要
In this paper, copper powder and graphene were used as thermally conductive fillers to form composites with epoxy resin matrix to measure the effect of different contents on the thermal conductivity. The experimental results show that as the content of copper powder increases from 10 wt.% to 77.3 wt.%, the thermal conductivity exhibits a linear growth trend (0.044 → 0.286 W/(m K)), corresponding to the transition from an isolated dispersion to a discrete chain structure. When the filler content exceeds the percolation threshold (77.3–83.4 wt.%), the thermal conductivity undergoes an abrupt increase (0.286 → 0.693 W/(m K), a 142% increase), at which point the three-dimensional interconnecting thermal conductivity network penetrates through the matrix. Comparative research found that the graphene in 1 wt.% and 3 wt.% had thermal conductivities of 0.136 W/(m K) and 0.166 W/(m K). However, there is no formation of a continuous thermal conductivity pathway. Nevertheless, graphene’s high intrinsic thermal conductivity still significantly enhances the composite thermal conductivity, making it more than that of a copper powder system with the same content. When the graphene content reaches 5.5 wt.%, its two-dimensional layer structure forms a highly efficient thermal conductivity pathway, leading to a sharp increase in thermal conductivity (0.166 → 0.328 W/(m K), a 97.6% increase).