Thermal conductivity enhancement in electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(vinyl alcohol)/cellulose nanocrystal composite nanofibers

The thermal conductivity enhancement of neat poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) composite was attempted via electrospinning. The suspended microdevice technique was applied to measure the thermal conductivity of electrospun nanofibers (NFs). Neat PVA NFs and PVA/CNC NFs with a diameter of approximately 200 nm showed thermal conductivities of 1.23 and 0.74 W/m-K, respectively, at room temperature, which are higher than that of bulk PVA by factors of 6 and 3.5, respectively. Material characterization by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis confirmed that the thermal conductivity of the PVA/CNC NFs was enhanced by the reinforcement of their backbone rigidity, while that of the neat PVA NFs was attributed to the increase in their crystallinity that occurred during the electrospinning.