Effective thermal conductivity of carbon nanostructure based polyethylene nanocomposite: Influence of defected, doped, and hybrid filler

Abstract Thermal conductivity of polyethylene nanocomposite filled with graphene, carbon nanotube and hybrid graphene–carbon nanotube has been studied using micromechanical model. The effect of CNT volume fraction and graphene volume fraction, length of graphene sheet, length and radius of carbon nanotubes on the thermal conductivity of composite has been investigated. Thermal conductivity of graphene-PE nanocomposite and CNT-PE nanocomposite increases by increasing the length of CNT and length of graphene sheet respectively. Whereas increase in diameter of CNT contributes to the decreasing thermal conductivity of CNT-PE nanocomposite. Then, the effect of structure defect (single vacancy, stone-wales defect) and dopant (Boron-doped, Nitrogen-doped) in the structure of graphene and carbon nanotube on the thermal conductivity of CNT-PE and graphene-PE nanocomposites has been studied. The thermal conductivity of graphene -PE and CNT-PE nanocomposites decreases by increasing the concentration of defect and dopant in the structure of graphene and carbon nanotube, respectively.