Manufacturing Graphene-Encapsulated Copper Particles by Chemical Vapor Deposition in a Cold Wall Reactor

Functional fillers, such as Ag, are commonly employed for effectively improving the thermal or electrical conductivity in polymer composites. However, a disadvantage of such a strategy is that the cost and performance cannot be balanced simultaneously. Therefore, the drive to find a material with both a cost efficient fabrication process and excellent performance attracts intense research interest. In this work, inspired by the core-shell structure, we developed a facile manufacturing method to prepare graphene-encapsulated Cu nanoparticles (GCPs) through utilizing an improved chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system with a cold wall reactor. The obtained GCPs could retain their spherical shape and exhibited an outstanding thermal stability up to 179 degrees C. Owing to the superior thermal conductivity of graphene and excellent oxidation resistance of GCPs, the produced GCPs are practically used in a thermally conductive adhesive (TCA), which commonly consists of Ag as the functional filler. Measurement shows a substantial 74.6 % improvement by partial replacement of Ag with GCPs.