Carbon nano-onions as a nanofiller for enhancing thermal conductivity of epoxy composites

Carbon nano-onions (CNOs) are a relatively new member in zero-dimensional carbon nanomaterials. Each constituent unit of CNOs is a multi-layer concentric spherical structure composed of multiple fullerene-like carbon spheres. CNOs are widely used for electronic components applications due to their large specific surface area and high electric conductivity. But a few works of CNOs on thermal conduction property in electronic device applications were studied. Therefore, we prepared the CNOs/epoxy composites by blending and casting method, and investigated the thermal conduction mechanism of CNOs in the epoxy matrix. The results show that the thermal conductivity of epoxy composite with 30 wt% CNOs loading reaches 0.59 W m−1 K−1 due to the formation of an effective thermal network of CNOs in epoxy resin, increasing by 320% in comparison with neat epoxy. In view of excellent thermal conduction performance, CNOs may be enable used as thermal conductive filler for the thermal management of electronic components.