High Thermal Conductivity of Plasticine-Based Nanocomposites Developed Using Simple Fabrication for Heat Management in Electronic Devices

Effectual thermal transport has turned out to be an imperative parameter for emerging technologies, especially in electronics. These integrated circuit technology appliances tend to undergo a surge in temperature during operation. To prevent untimely degradation and performance lag, it is important to prevent substantial overheating of the device. Polymeric thermal interface materials (TIMs) have grave issues, such as bundling of fillers, prohibitive cost, critical fabrication processes, high phonon scattering, and bad filler-matrix interaction. Herein, various carbonaceous fillers are used in the neat plasticine matrix. The results obtained at various loadings of graphite-, xGnP-, and graphene-based nanocomposites are interesting. At 23 wt%, the thermal conductivities (TCs) obtained are 2.44, 4.32, and 5.22, W mK(-1), respectively. The high TC is attributed to the better interaction of plasticine matrix and carbonaceous fillers, thus preventing bad dispersion issues and aggravated phonon scattering, as revealed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The nanocomposites exhibit good stability in TC even after prolonged heat exposure of 360 h. From this study, it is concluded that low-cost plasticine-based nanocomposites exhibit high TC, better dispersion of fillers, and low TC fluctuations after prolonged heat exposures, which is essential for effective heat dissipation in advanced electronic devices.