Thermally Conductive Elastomer Composites with High Toughness, Softness, and Resilience Enabled by Regulating...

The emerging applications of thermally conductive elastomer composites in modern electronic devices for heat dissipation require them to maintain both high toughness and resilience under thermomechanical stresses. However, such a combination of thermal conductivity and desired mechanical characteristics is extremely challenging to achieve in elastomer composites. Here this long-standing mismatch is resolved via regulating interfacial structure and dynamics response. This regulation is realized both by tuning the molecular weight of the dangling chains in the polymer networks and by silane grafting of the fillers, thereby creating a broad dynamic-gradient interfacial region comprising of entanglements. These entanglements can provide the slipping topological constraint that allows for tension equalization between and along the chains, while also tightening into rigid knots to prevent chain disentanglement upon stretching. Combined with ultrahigh loading of aluminum-fillers (90 wt%), this design provides a low Young's modulus (350.0 kPa), high fracture toughness (831.5 J m^-2), excellent resilience (79%) and enhanced thermal conductivity (3.20 W m^-1 k^-1). This work presents a generalizable preparation strategy toward engineering soft, tough, and resilient high-filled elastomer composites, suitable for complex environments, such as automotive electronics, and wearable devices.