Experimental, Theoretical and Simulation Studies on the Thermal Behavior of PLA-Based Nanocomposites Reinforced with Different Carbonaceous Fillers

Abstract

Many research efforts have been directed towards enhancing the thermal properties of polymers, since they are classically regarded as thermal insulators. To this end, the present study focuses on the thermal investigation of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) filled with two types of carbon nanotubes (trade names: TNIMH4 and N7000), two type of graphene nanoplatelets (trade names: TNIGNP and TNGNP), or their appropriate combination. A significant increase in the thermal conductivity by 254% with respect to that of unfilled polymer was achieved in the best case by using 9 wt% TNIGNP, resulting from its favorable arrangement and the lower thermal boundary resistance between the two phases, matrix and filler. To theoretically assist the design of such advanced nanocomposites, Design of Experiments (DoE) and Response Surface Method (RSM) were employed, respectively, to obtain information on the conditioning effect of each filler loading on the thermal conductivity and to find an analytical relationship between them. The numerical results were compared with the experimental data in order to confirm the reliability of the prediction. Finally, a simulation study was carried out with Comsol Multiphysics® for a comparative study between two heat sinks based on pure PLA, and to determine the best thermally performing nanocomposite with a view towards potential use in heat transfer applications.

Enhanced Thermal Conductivity of Polymer Composite by Adding Fishbone-like Silicon Carbide

“…Wang et al enhanced the thermal conductivity of carbon fiber/polymer composites through SiC nanowires/graphene hybrid nanofillers [24]. Spinelli et al explored the thermal conduction research of polylactic acid (PLA) filled with two types of carbon nanotubes and two types of graphene nanosheets or their appropriate combination [25].…”

Experimental and Simulation Studies of Temperature Effect on Thermophysical Properties of Graphene-Based Polylactic Acid

“…The term industrial was assigned by the manufacturer (Times Nano, Chengdu, China) to indicate the large-scale production of such filler that allows containing its cost. Nevertheless, the authors have already tested in previous studies such carbon-based particles funding them suitable as reinforcement, given the remarkable overall physical properties of the resulting nanocomposites [ 29 ].…”

“…Morphological study concerning the dispersion quality of graphene nanoplatelets into the PLA-based host matrix was explored through a scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis performed with a field emission SEM apparatus JSM-6700F (JSM-6700F, Jeol, Akishima, Japan) on ad-hoc fractured in liquid nitrogen, etched and then gold-sputtered specimens as previously described in Spinelli et al [ 29 ].…”

“…In our previous study, the authors have presented their experimental results on the thermal behavior of some carbon-based nanocomposites and their first multiphysics simulation studies on two heat sinks based on pure PLA and PLA reinforced with GNPs, in view of their potential use in heat transfer applications [ 29 ]. Both the experimental and simulation studies were conducted with reference to the room temperature.…”

“…More in detail, four different temperature values ranging between 298.15 and 373.15 K have been selected to analyze the resulting effect on the thermal response in terms of thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and specific heat capacity. All these properties were measured by the laser flash method [ 30 ] instead of the hot disk sensor adopted in our previous paper [ 29 , 31 ]. Pure PLA is assumed for performance comparison.…”