Enhanced thermal and electrical conductivity in epoxy nanocomposites via liquid crystal-driven alignment of graphene

There is a lack of systematic research on the use of liquid crystal-modified graphene in the production of thermally conductive composites. In this work, we utilized covalent and non-covalent interactions between 4′-allyloxy-biphenyl-4-ol (AOBPO) and graphene oxide (GO), reduced graphene oxide (rGO), and high-temperature reduced graphene oxide (GNS) to improve the compatibility and dispersion of the fillers with the silicone-cycloaliphatic epoxy resin. The thermal conductivity of GNS-AOBPO composite material significantly increases when a shear force field is applied, even at a lower filler content of 7 wt%, reaching 0.828 W/(m·K), which is 1.8 times higher than that without the field. At 9 wt% filler content, the thermal conductivity further increases to 1.161 W/(m·K), which is 10 times higher than epoxy resin. Concurrently, the electrical resistivity decreased by half. This provides a method for preparing thermal conductive composite materials by inducing the orientation of graphene through the application of a shear force field.