Thermal Interface Materials with Hexagonal Boron Nitride and Graphene Fillers in PDMS Matrix: Thermal and Mechanical Properties

This work studies the effects of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) on the thermal and mechanical properties of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix for use as thermal interface materials (TIMs). Solution mixing of 10 wt% GNPs and 40 wt% hBN with PDMS produced TIMs with through-plane thermal conductivity (TC) of 1.24 W m−1 K−1 showing a 519% increase relative to the neat matrix. A synergistic effect between GNPs and hBN was particularly demonstrated when in samples with 48 wt% total filler content, 8 wt% hBN was replaced by GNPs, and the TC was increased by 33%. The elongation at break of the hBN (40 wt%)/GNP (8 wt%) samples reached 151%, representing a 160% increase when compared to samples with only 40 wt% hBN. Moreover, the shore hardness of samples containing 40 wt% hBN was 68 A, and the introduction of 8 wt% GNPs caused a decrease to 38 A. DSC measurements on samples filled with hBN and GNPs showed a reduction up to 65% in Ultimate Heat of Curing, which was attributed to the presence of graphene flakes interfering with the curing of the matrix. Graphene was found to be an efficient filler in tuning the thermal and mechanical properties of TIMs.