Improved Thermal Conductivities of Epoxy Resins Containing Surface Functionalized BN Nanosheets

The hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (BN) were firstly treated by silane coupling agents 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (KH550) and 3-glycidoxypropyl-trimethoxysilane (KH560) to introduce some amino and epoxy (EP) groups on the BN surface. These modified BN nanosheets were incorporated into an EP matrix to prepare BN@KH560/EP composites with excellent thermal conductivity and electrical insulation properties. Results showed that the thermal conductivity of BN@KH560/EP composite with 20[Formula: see text]vol% BN dosage was found to be 0.442[Formula: see text]W/(m[Formula: see text]K), which was 81% higher than that of pure EP resin. Both BN/EP composites treated by KH550 and KH560 showed rather good electrical insulation properties, although the dielectric constant of BN@KH550/EP composites were slightly higher than BN@KH560/EP composites. Moreover, BN@KH560/EP composites also showed better thermal and mechanical properties than that of BN@KH550/EP composites.