Preparation of thermally conductive but electrically insulated polypropylene containing copper nanowire

Abstract The ever-increasing demand for higher power density and smaller device size of modern electronics has led to urgent development of highly efficient thermal management material systems. In this work, thermally conductive polypropylene/copper nanowire (PP/CuNW) nanocomposites were successfully prepared by hexadecylamine ligand layer decoration of CuNW, followed by solution mixing with PP and coagulation precipitation. The compression molded PP/CuNW thin sheets exhibit a planar randomly distributed CuNW network. The in-plane and through-thickness thermal conductivity of PP/CuNW with 3 vol% CuNW reaches 1.04 and 0.50 W/mK, respectively. With decoration of the hexadecylamine ligand on CuNW, the PP/CuNW remains electrically insulative up to 1.5 vol% of CuNW loading. The present work provides an effective method for preparation of highly thermally conductive yet electrically insulated polymer nanocomposites for thermal management applications.