In situ Ti assisted graphitization approach for the preparation of graphite foam with light weight and high thermal conductivity

The state-of-the-art graphite foams (GFs) are afflicted by large bulk density and low thermal conductivity, restricting their practical application. To alleviate the above problem, herein, an issue-oriented scheme, i.e., an in situ titanium (Ti) assisted catalytic graphitization strategy was proposed by using AR mesophase pitch (ARMP) as a precursor. In a typical preparation process, the mixture of Ti and ARMP underwent a pressurized foam, carbonization, and graphitization procedure successively to obtain GFs. The results showed that the Ti content played an important role in the development of the graphitic microcrystal structure due to the catalytic graphitization of Ti. According to the XRD analysis and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, we confirmed that Ti promoted graphitization mainly by the generation of TiC during the high-temperature graphitization. The GFs obtained with 11 wt% Ti exhibited the most perfect graphitic crystal structure, with the highest graphitization degree. Thanks to the improved graphitization degree, the thermal conductivity of GFs increased with the added amount of Ti increasing from 0 to 11 wt%. The highest thermal conductivity of 60.8 W m^-1 K^-1 and the low bulk density of 0.36 g cm^-3 could be achieved when the addition amount of Ti was 11 wt%. Meanwhile, apart from the optimization of thermal conductivity and bulk density, the compressive strength was also enhanced as the amount of Ti increased from 0 to 15 wt%. Our work provided a facile and scalable approach to preparing GFs with low density and high thermal conductivity.