Flexible 1-octadecanol/polydimethylsiloxane/graphene composite phase change materials with high latent heat and...

Phase change materials (PCMs) have evolved into a pivotal research focus within electronic thermal management, on account of their capability to store and release latent heat with high stability. Nevertheless, conventional polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based composite PCMs (CPCMs) face an inevitable trade-off between latent heat retention, thermal conductivity improvement, and flexibility. In addition, high loadings of thermally conductive fillers tend to induce agglomeration, which further leads to performance deterioration and limits practical applications. To address these bottlenecks, a flexible CPCM was fabricated by introducing merely 0.5 wt% graphene as a thermally conductive additive, which contributed to a 52.4% enhancement in thermal conductivity. The optimized CPCM exhibited a melting enthalpy of 168.6 J/g after graphene incorporation, accompanied by a high elongation at break of 94.4%. It also showed favorable resistance to bending, torsion, and tensile deformation at room temperature, and maintained superior thermal and structural stability after 300 heating-cooling cycles. In simulated tests under a 2.5 W power supply, the as-prepared CPCM achieved a maximum chip temperature reduction of approximately 5.2 °C relative to the bare chip. This work achieves an effective triple balance of thermal conduction efficiency, heat storage capacity, and flexibility at an ultra-low filler dosage, providing a feasible strategy for the design and preparation of high-performance flexible thermal management CPCMs.