Thermal Conductivity of Polymer-Based Composites with Magnetic Aligned Hexagonal Boron Nitride Platelets

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) platelets are widely used as the reinforcing fillers for enhancing the thermal conductivity of polymer-based composites. Since hBN platelets have high aspect ratio and show a highly anisotropic thermal property, the thermal conductivity of the hBNs-filled composites should be strongly associated with the platelets' orientation. However, the orientation effect has been explored less frequently due to the technical difficulties in precontrol of the platelets' orientation in the polymer matrix. In this paper, we report the use of magnetic fields to assemble the platelets into various microstructures and to study the thermal conductivities of the designed composites. The experimental results showed that thermal conductivities are dramatically different among these composites. For instance, the thermal conductivities of the composites with platelets oriented parallel and perpendicular to the heat flux direction are respectively 44.5% higher and 37.9% lower than that of unaligned composites at the volume fraction of 9.14%. The results were also analyzed by a theoretical model. The model suggests that the orientation of the hBN platelets is the main reason for the variance in the thermal conductivity.