Graphene Thermal Properties: Applications in Thermal Management and Energy Storage

Abstract

Abstract:We review the thermal properties of graphene, few-layer graphene and graphene nanoribbons, and discuss practical applications of graphene in thermal management and energy storage. The first part of the review describes the state-of-the-art in the graphene thermal field focusing on recently reported experimental and theoretical data for heat conduction in graphene and graphene nanoribbons. The effects of the sample size, shape, quality, strain distribution, isotope composition, and point-defect concentration are included in the summary. The second part of the review outlines thermal properties of graphene-enhanced phase change materials used in energy storage. It is shown that the use of liquid-phase-exfoliated graphene as filler material in phase change materials is promising for thermal management of high-power-density battery parks. The reported experimental and modeling results indicate that graphene has the potential to outperform metal nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, and other carbon allotropes as filler in thermal management materials. OPEN ACCESSAppl. Sci. 2014, 4 526

Thermal Management of Concentrated Multi-Junction Solar Cells with Graphene-Enhanced Thermal Interface Materials

“…One should note that, even if the joined surfaces are polished to perfection, the thermal boundary resistance (TBR) will still exist at the interface of two materials owing to the mismatch in their acoustic phonon properties. Thermal interface materials (TIMs) or thermal phase change materials (PCMs) perform the task of reducing thermal resistance between two surfaces and facilitating heat transfer between the heat generating device and a heat sink [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. In this paper, we demonstrate that the thermal management of concentrator multi-junction solar cells can be substantially improved by enhancing properties of TIMs via incorporation of graphene [41].…”

“…This material has proven to have an unusually high thermal conductivity with intrinsic values in the range of 2000 to 5000 W/mK near room temperature [46]. This is an order of magnitude larger than pure silver [33][34][35]. The thermal conductivity of graphene flakes reduces with decreasing lateral dimensions of the flakes and upon contact with the base or matrix material.…”

A New Mechanism for THz Detection Based on the Tunneling Effect in Bi-Layer Graphene Nanoribbons

“…Carbon-based materials, like carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are definitely the most promising nanostructured materials for realizing the building blocks of high-frequency devices [5][6][7], given their outstanding electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties [8][9][10], which make them of great interest for THz applications [11][12][13][14]. Indeed, carbon-based materials are proposed for several THz devices, like ballistic transistors [15], or waveguides and nanoantennas [16,17].…”

Acoustic Phonon Engineering of Cubic Semiconductor Quantum Dot

“…Actually in the past decade, the dynamics of acoustic phonons in QD superlattices or QD crystal has attracted a lot of attention [18][19][20][21][22][23]. Phonon spectrum has also been studied in case of graphene and other nanostructure [2,4]. In our earlier work [24], elastic continuum approach with finite difference method was used to calculate the phonon dispersion of semiconductor cubic quantum dot from which phonon group velocity was found by numerical differentiation.…”

“…So the physicist and engineers are stimulated for the research of understanding the novel properties of semiconductor nanostructures such as quantum well, quantum wires and quantum dot. Although there has much work on the electronic properties of nanostructures, research in phonon properties has attracted significant attention in recent years [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In a semiconductor, acoustic phonons are the dominant heat carriers.…”