Enhancing the Thermal and Electrical Performance of Epoxy Microcomposites with the Addition of Nanofillers

Polymers are widely used insulating materials in electrical engineering because of their good dielectric properties, low cost, light weight, and ease of production. However, polymers exhibit a relatively low thermal conductivity that ranges between 0.1 and 0.6 W/mK. An approach to improve the thermal performance of polymers is the addition of high loadings of microsized fillers with high thermal conductivity [1]-[8]. However, most of the time, microcomposites exhibit inferior electrical properties such as higher relative permittivity and/or lower breakdown strength, compared with neat materials or microcomposites with lower fill grades [2], [4], [9]-[11]. In the last years, much research has been carried out to evaluate the potential advantages that nanosized fillers can offer to polymers [12], [13]. © 2006 IEEE.