Cu nanoparticle-embedded carbon foams with improved compressive strength and thermal conductivity

Carbon foams (CFms) exhibit excellent physical properties, including good thermal con-ductivity, low density, high porosity and specific surface area, good vibration damping and shock absorption properties, and low thermal expansion coefficients. These properties are attractive in various applications such as thermal and electrical transfer devices, electro-chemical supercapacitors, catalyst supports, gas adsorbents, filtration systems, and electro-magnetic shielding. However, compared to metals and polymers, CFms do not exhibit good mechanical or thermal properties because of their porous structure; these shortcomings have limited the application of CFms in various fields [1-4].Researchers have sought to improve the mechanical and thermal properties of CFms through the addition of carbon nanofibers, carbon nanotubes, graphite and metal plating [5,6]. CFms/copper composites were recently studied by Johnson et al. [7], who examined the thermal conductivity of wood-derived graphite and copper-graphite composites pro-duced via electrodeposition. The thermal conductivity of the biomorphic graphite/copper composite was 10 times greater than that of biomorphic graphite, with the graphite/copper composites exhibiting a thermal conductivity ranging from 20 to 21 W/mK [7]. Zhai et al. [8] studied the effects of vacuum and ultrasonic co-assisted electroless copper plating on CFms and noted increased conductivity ranging from 700 to 1885.8 S/cm, and increased compres-sive strength ranging from 0.70 to 1.66 MPa with increasing copper content. Cu exhibits high thermal and electrical conductivities, in the range of 350-400 W/mK and 59.17-59.59 × 10