Laser direct structuring and electroless plating applicable super-engineering plastic PPS based thermal conductive composite with particle surface modification

Boron nitride (BN) and laser activate particles (LAPs) were surface-modified via base treatment and by using a silane coupling agent in order to confer functionality and enhance the interfacial affinity of these particles for a polymer matrix. The introduction of LAP and BN caused severe deterioration of the mechanical properties of the filler–polymer composite by acting as defects and due to the poor interface with polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), used as the polymeric matrix. As expected, the thermal and mechanical properties were enhanced via surface modification, whereas the tensile strength of the composites with the surface-modified fillers remained lower than that of neat PPS. The BN/LAP binary filler system showed little influence on the mechanical properties of the composite. However, the incorporation of a small amount of LAP into the BN composite produced a slight improvement of the thermal conductivity when the total filler content was maintained. Moreover, LAP leads the metal plating at the laser irradiated surface. Thus, the BN/LAP/PPS composite was used to fabricate a circuit board via laser direct structuring (LDS) and electroless plating for potential light emitting diode (LED) application.