Interfacial template-engineered eco-friendly nanocomposites towards rapid thermal conduction

Heat conductive polymer composites are widely applied in the thermal management of microelectronic devices, while most polymers as heat conductive composite substrates are difficult to degrade in natural conditions. To alleviate the increasingly severe environmental problems, herein, we elaborately design novel eco-friendly nanocomposites with high thermal conductivity through a facile interface-enhancement-template (IET) strategy, which was composited of poly (butylene succinate) (PBS) and chitosan-coated hexagonal boron nitride (CS/h-BN). The melt blending h-BN/PBS nanocomposites were only 1.40 W m−1 K−1 at 40 wt% in thermal conductivity, while the CS/h-BN/PBS-* nanocomposites prepared by the IET strategy can reach 2.72 W m−1 K−1 in the same loading. Besides, when pristine PBS was used as thermal interface material between LED chips and Cu heat sink, the run temperature of LED chips can reach 106.0 °C at 120 s. However, the CS/h-BN/PBS-* nanocomposites were only 47.3 °C under the same conditions, and the run temperature of LED chips remained relatively constant during the 8 cycles, exhibiting excellent sustained heat dissipation. This work provides a new strategy for the preparation of eco-friendly nanocomposites with high thermal conductivity. [Display omitted] •We reported a novel eco-friendly nanocomposite with high thermal conductivity by interface-enhancement-template strategy.•The CS/h-BN/PBS nanocomposites can achieve 2.719 W·m-1·K-1 in thermal conductivity, revealing 1108% higher than pure PBS.•As CS/h-BN/PBS nanocomposites were used as thermal interface materials, the operating temperature of LEDs was only 47.3 °C.