Welding dopamine modified graphene nanosheets onto graphene foam for high thermal conductive composites

Abstract Developing thermal management materials with high thermal conductivity (TC) is critical to the microelectronics. Herein, we fabricated high thermal conductive polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) composites by using graphene foam (GF) and dopamine modified graphene nanoplatelets (mGNPs) as fillers. The results indicated that mGNPs could weld onto the GF skeleton to repair the structural defects of GF, which is conducive to improving the composite's TC by forming efficient thermal conductive pathways in the matrix. The obtained GF/mGNPs/PVDF composite (GF: 0.27 vol%, mGNPs: 8.82 vol%) exhibited an in-plane TC of 6.32 W m−1 K−1, which was much higher than that of GF/GNPs/PVDF composite (4.26 W m−1 K−1) at the same GF and GNPs contents. The GF/mGNPs/PVDF composites also possessed excellent dimensional stability and mechanical property. The study revealed that welding mGNPs onto GF is an effective method to fabricate high thermal conductive composites.