Preparation of molybdenum disulfide microspheres and their effect on the thermal conductivity of epoxy resin

To endow the epoxy resins (EP) with high thermal conductivity, two kinds of molybdenum disulfide with microspheres structure (S-MoS2-1, S-MoS2-2) were prepared via surfactant promoting hydrothermal process based on the sodium lauryl sulfate sulfonate and sodium dodecyl benzene, respectively. These two S-MoS2 were then used as modifiers and added into EP matrix by different content to prepare two series of S-MoS2/EP composites, respectively. The morphologies of these prepared S-MoS2 were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and influence of S-MoS2 with different morphologies and loading on the dielectric properties, thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of S-MoS2/EP composites was also researched. The results suggested that the reasonable content of S-MoS2 (3.0 wt%) can highly improve the thermal conductivity of S-MoS2/EP composites, and the optimal value are 0.3061 W/mK and 0.3105 W/mK, which are 80.05% and 82.64% higher than that of pure EP resin, respectively. The enhancement of thermal conductivity can not only be attributed to the good thermal conductivity of S-MoS2 itself, but also to their spherical structure that can effectively resist heat damage to the materials.