Enhancement of thermal conductivity of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite with copper and boron nitride particles

Abstract

A hybrid filler system, which combines hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and copper particles, was applied on the surface of continuous carbon fiber tapes by utilizing electrophoretic deposition to maximize the thermal conductivity of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite in this study. The results show that as the deposition time increased, the thermal conductivity increased. The annealing treatment made the copper particles connect with adjacent particles, which highly enhanced the thermal conductivity. The CFRP made of annealed carbon fiber tapes with hBN/Cu coating performed the best thermal conductivity and largest enhancement efficiency in this work for as high as 2.16 W/m·K and 217% in through-plane direction, and 6.14 W/m·K, and 47% in in-plane direction.