Physical, Thermal Transport, and Compressive Properties of Epoxy Composite Filled with Graphitic- and Ceramic-Based Thermally Conductive Nanofillers

Epoxy polymer composites embedded with thermally conductive nanofillers play an important role in the thermal management of polymer microelectronic packages, since they can provide thermal conduction properties with electrically insulating properties. An epoxy composite system filled with graphitic-based fillers; multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and ceramic-based filler; silicon carbide nanoparticles (SiCs) was investigated as a form of thermal-effective reinforcement for epoxy matrices. The epoxy composites were fabricated using a simple fabrication method, which included ultrasonication and planetary centrifugal mixing. The effect of graphite-based and ceramic-based fillers on the thermal conductivity was measured by the transient plane source method, while the glass transition temperature of the fully cured samples was studied by differential scanning calorimetry. Thermal gravimetric analysis was adopted to study the thermal stability of the samples, and the compressive properties of different filler loadings (1–5 vol.%) were also discussed. The glass temperatures and thermal stabilities of the epoxy system were increased when incorporated with the graphite- and ceramic-based fillers. These results can be correlated with the thermal conductivity of the samples, which was found to increase with the increase in the filler loadings, except for the epoxy/SiCs composites. The thermal conductivity of the composites increased to 0.4 W/mK with 5 vol.% of MWCNTs, which is a 100% improvement over pure epoxy. The GNPs, SiCs, and MWCNTs showed uniform dispersion in the epoxy matrix and well-established thermally conductive pathways.