Advances in Liquid Crystalline Epoxy Resins for High Thermal Conductivity

Abstract

Epoxy resin (EP) is one of the most famous thermoset materials. In general, because EP has a three-dimensional random network, it possesses thermal properties similar to those of a typical heat insulator. Recently, there has been substantial interest in controlling the network structure of EP to create new functionalities. Indeed, the modified EP, represented as liquid crystalline epoxy (LCE), is considered promising for producing novel functionalities, which cannot be obtained from conventional EPs, by replacing the random network structure with an oriented one. In this paper, we review the current progress in the field of LCEs and their application to highly thermally conductive composite materials.

Thermally conductive polymer-based composites: fundamentals, progress and flame retardancy/anti-electromagnetic interference design

“…The thermal conductivity of polymers can be enhanced in two ways. 74 The first way to improve the thermal conductivity of polymers is to optimize the structure of the polymers by introducing large conjugated π bonds 75 to their structures such as polyacetylene, polypyrrole, polyaniline and so on because this molecular structure can conduct heat through an electronic thermal conduction mechanism. Polymers with conjugated π-bonds have higher thermal conductivity, because π-bonds contain electrons, which can serve as heat carriers.…”

Characteristic and Synthesis of High-Temperature Resistant Liquid Crystal Epoxy Resin Containing Boron Nitride Composite

“…The newly synthesized LCERs would be expected to exhibit a melting point of about 180~250℃, and therefore can be suitable for the application in packing materials. Different kinds of boron nitride were chosen to add into the resins for studying the thermal conductivity of the composites [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ].…”

Flexible epoxy‐dispersed liquid crystal membranes of intrinsic thermal conductivity with high voltage orientation molding

“…[10][11][12][13] For the latter, TC's improvement is based on the molecular chains' ordered arrangement, phonon transmission pathways' extension, and thermal scattering suppression in microscopic-ordered structures. [14][15][16][17][18][19] Intrinsic thermal conductive polymer materials not only achieve high TC, but maintain good mechanical, electrical and other properties as well, [20][21][22][23] having important industrial application. Li et al 8 prepared polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) membranes by uniform dispersion of liquid crystal monomer (LCM) in polyvinyl alcohol, belonging to intrinsic thermal conductive polymer materials, and the TC of 1.41 W m À1 K À1 was 10.85 times higher than that of pure polyvinyl alcohol membrane (0.13 W m À1 K À1 ), due to the phonon transmission pathways' extension with the formation of microscopic-ordered structures.…”