Copper and Nickel Coating of Carbon Fiber for Thermally and Electrically Conductive Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

In this paper, the thermal and electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of fiber reinforced composites produced from nickel- and copper-coated carbon fibers compared to uncoated fibers are presented. The carbon fibers were processed by our prepreg line and cured to laminates. In the fiber direction, the thermal conductivity doubled from ~3 W/mK for the uncoated fiber, to ~6 W/mK for the nickel, and increased six times to ~20 W/mK for the copper-coated fiber for a fiber volume content of ~50 vol %. Transverse to the fiber, the thermal conductivity increased from 0.6 W/mK (uncoated fiber) to 0.9 W/mK (nickel) and 2.9 W/mK (copper) at the same fiber content. In addition, the electrical conductivity could be enhanced to up to ~1500 S/m with the use of the nickel-coated fiber. We showed that the flexural strength and modulus were in the range of the uncoated fibers, which offers the possibility to use them for lightning strike protection, for heatsinks in electronics or other structural heat transfer elements.

Enhancement of thermal stability and wettability for epoxy/Cu coated carbon fiber composites

“…Thermal stability of Cu coating CF was enhanced because of the thermal stability of Cu and the strong interaction bonds after chemical treatment. This agrees with the results of Bard et al [11] and Mohd et al [13].…”

“…In addition to the carbon peak originating from the carbon substrate only copper features were noticed, presumably formed as an artifact due to manipulating with the copper-coated CF [10]. Table 2 shows the TGA results for Ep/CF, Ep/chemical treated CF and Ep/Cu coated CF composites at different treatment temperatures have a 5% weight loss (T 5 ) below 450 °C , due to the physically decomposition and adsorption of water [11,12]. It can be noted that, for Ep/Cu coated CF, the temperature for the 5% weight loss increased to 322 °C when compare with that of the Ep/CF and Ep/chemical treated CF.…”

“…Fig.4 shows that the thermal conductivity increases as the treatment temperature increase. This behavior is due to the increase of the deposition rate of copper as the temperature increases, which is due to a uniform and continuous dispersion with higher mechanical and chemical bonds [14,11]. The contact angle slightly decreased after chemical treatment to 105 o .…”

Experimental and numerical investigation of a thermal conductivity in the thermally drained carbon-fiber/epoxy composite materials for aeronautical applications

“…They found that the thermal conductivity varies linearly with the nanoparticles concentration. Bard et al 23 have studied the influence of a metal coating on the thermal conductivity of laminates. They have shown that the metal coating was very effective to enhance the thermal conductivity, both in the transverse and in fiber direction.…”

Optimization of Boron Nitride Sphere Loading in Epoxy: Enhanced Thermal Conductivity and Excellent Electrical Insulation

“…According to recent advances, metallic and carbon materials, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, have been used to enhance thermal conductivity due to their free electrons, which are much more efficient in heat transfer. Unfortunately, adding metallic or carbon particles into polymers will also cause a substantial increase in the electrical conductivity of the composites [13,14,15]. Moreover, ceramic fillers, such as Al 2 O 3 , AlN, BN, SiC and Si 3 N 4 , with different shapes and sizes, have been studied for thermally conductive and electrically insulating composites, as they lack free electrons, so the heat transfer is predominantly realized through phonons [16,17,18,19,20].…”