Experimental characterization of 3D printed PP/h-BN thermally conductive composites with highly oriented h-BN and the effects of filler size

Fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology is one of the most widely used 3D printing methods. Due to the high orientation of the fillers caused by printing, the development of thermally conductive composites suitable for FFF has broad prospects. Although there have been some studies on the effect of h-BN content on the thermal conductivity of composites, there are very few studies on the effect of particle size on composites, which is also very worth deeply researching. In this work, iPP/h-BN thermally conductive composites were prepared by FFF method. The effects of h-BN fillers with different particle sizes on its properties, especially the thermal conductivity, were deeply studied. SEM and XRD results show the medium and large h-BN have a much higher orientation degree than small one. The thermal conductivity results show that h-BN with large particle size has the highest thermal conductivity along the printing direction.