Enhanced thermal conductivity of epoxy/Cu-plated carbon fiber fabric composites

Enhanced heat conduction behavior of epoxy/polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber fabric composites was developed through Cu electroplating on carbon fiber fabrics. The polyacrylonitrile-based carbon fiber fabric with low thermal conductivity was employed as a template to form continuous Cu thermal conduction pathway. The epoxy composites with the continuous heat conduction pathway exhibited high thermal conductivities of 7.70 W/mK in the parallel direction, and 0.96 W/mK in the perpendicular direction, even with a lower Cu content of 3.5 vol%, which is a 220% and 70% increase over those of the epoxy/carbon fiber composites with isolated Cu beads, respectively. The experimental thermal conductivities of the composites were compared to the theoretically calculated values based on the Hatta and Taya models. Our simple approach offers a straightforward strategy to enhance thermal conductivity of polymer composites through incorporating the continuous Cu thin layers as an efficient thermal conduction pathway. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]