Effects of thermal and electrical conductivity of Al(OH)3 functionalized graphene/epoxy composites by simple sol-gel method

Abstract

Functionalized graphene/epoxy composites were prepared to miprove thermal conductivities of epoxy composites and to maintain electrical insulating property. Graphene oxide (GO) was prepared using Hummers method, and then GO was reacted with aluminum isopropoxide to functionalize Al(OH)3 layer onto GO surface by a simple sol-gel method (Al-GO). GO and Al-GO were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The analyses confirm that GO was coated with a large and dense coverage of Al(OH)3. GO and Al-GO (1 and 3 wt%) were embedded in bisphenol A (DGEBA) to investigate the effects of electrical insulating property. Electrical resistivity showed that Al-GO had better insulating property than GO. Further, the thermal conductivity of GO and Al-GO/epoxy composites was higher than that of neat epoxy resins. In particular, the thermal conductivity of Al-GO/bisphenol F (DGEBF) improved by 23.3% and Al-GO/DGEBA enhanced by 21.8% compared with pure epoxy resins.