A thermal management strategy for electronic devices based on copper double skin inspired hydrogel

A passive cooling material was proposed by combining the advantages of an interpenetrating polymer network and copper powder. The experimental thermal conductivity of copper based composite hydrogel was enhanced to 0.71 W/(m·K). At the same time, MD simulations showed a thermal conductivity of approximately 0.84 W/(m·K), which primarily caused by the increased overlap between hydrogel components. Due to the improvement of the thermal conductivity, the heat flux of copper based composite hydrogel increased to 977 W/m2 at a constant heat source temperature of 65 °C and the total heat dissipation increased by 104.4%. The thermal management tests showed copper based composite hydrogel could reach 35 °C, while the copper based composite hydrogel could reach 50 °C. The obtained copper based PNIPAM/Alginate-Ca2+ hydrogel exhibited a synergistic property enhancement of high thermal conductivity, stability in shape and decreased aggregation of the copper nanoparticles, which should provide a new strategy for thermal management.