Silver nanoparticles bridging segregated hexagonal boron nitride networks for enhancing the thermal conductivity of polystyrene composites

The segregated heat conductive networks constructed from two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are promising in improve the thermal conductivity of polymer-based thermal management materials (TMMs), however, the high interfacial thermal resistance between adjacent hBN sheets remains challenging. Hence, high-performance polystyrene (PS)-based composites with continuous segregated h[email protected] networks were designed and prepared by hot-pressing method. Benefited from the modification and bridge effect of AgNP, the interconnected hBN exhibited significantly reduced contact thermal resistance, which provide the effective pathways for phonon conduction. The as-fabricated PS/h[email protected] composite exhibited high thermal conductivity (1.17 and 1.53 W/mK, 30 wt%) corresponding to enhancements of 738.4% and 989.9% compared with neat PS, significantly higher than random PS/hBN and composites without AgNP in the segregated structure. Therefore, this work provides a strategy for the preparation of high-performance polymer-based TMMs by reducing the interfacial thermal resistance in interconnected filler network.