Enhanced thermal conductivity of carbon nitride-doped graphene/polyimide composite film via a “deciduous-like” strategy

Abstract Driven by the rapid development of modern electronics in minimization, high integration and high-power density, tailored polymer films with high thermal conductivity and electrical insulation have made great progress. However, traditional approaches for enhancing thermal conductivity usually sacrifices processibility, electrical insulation and mechanical flexibility of the polymer films. Here, after settling doping reduced graphene oxide with carbon nitride (rGO@CN) in polyimide film (PI) by a facile deciduous-like strategy, we obtain polyimide film with both high thermal conductivity and satisfied electrical insulation at low filler loading. By taking the advantage of thermally conductive channels provided by continuous rGO@CN layer, PI/rGO@CN composite film at 10 wt% filler loading exhibits a maximum thermal conductivity of 6.08 Wm−1K−1 which is about 30-fold compared with that of pure PI film (0.2 Wm−1K−1). Besides, the PI/rGO@CN composite film also maintains excellent electrical insulation, mechanical flexibility and thermal stability. Furthermore, the thermal conductivity of rGO@CN has been further explored by non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation. This work provides new strategy for the industrial production of PI film with high thermal conductivity and electrical insulation.