Fabrication of polyrotaxane and graphene nanoplate composites with high thermal conductivities

In recent years, rapid progress in the development of flexible electronic devices has increased the demand for materials with low Young's modulus and high thermal conductivities. In this study, we successfully fabricated such composites with polyrotaxane (PR) by applying highly concentrated graphene nanoplates (GNPs). A high thermal conductivity of 25 W m(-1) K-1 was achieved along the in-plane direction of the composite while maintaining a low Young's modulus of 147 MPa at 35 vol% of GNPs. This thermal conductivity is higher than those achieved with PR composites containing 56 vol% of hexagonal boron nitride and 37 vol% of aligned carbon nanofiber/carbon nanotubes.