Graphene-coated ZnO tetrapod whiskers for thermally and electrically conductive epoxy composites

Published Date
Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
March 2017, Vol.94:104–112, doi:10.1016/j.compositesa.2016.12.009

Author 

• Yue Jiang ^a
• Renhui Sun ^a
• Hao-Bin Zhang ^a,,
• Peng Min ^a
• Dongzhi Yang ^a
• Zhong-Zhen Yu^a,b,,

• aState Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
• bBeijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China

Received 10 October 2016. Revised 1 December 2016. Accepted 8 December 2016. Available online 9 December 2016. 

Abstract

Graphene-coated tetrapod ZnO whisker (T-ZnO) hybrids are fabricated by chemical modification of T-ZnO with an aminosilane, covalent coating with graphene oxide (GO) sheets, and reduction of the GO component by UV irradiation or thermal annealing. Compared to the moderately reduced hybrid by UV irradiation, the thermally annealed hybrid at 1000 °C (TGO1000@T-ZnO) is highly efficient in improving both thermal and electrical conductivities of epoxy. A high thermal conductivity of 5.06 W/(m K) is achieved for the epoxy composite with 65 vol.% TGO1000@T-ZnO hybrid. The epoxy composite with 65 vol.% TGO1000@T-ZnO also exhibits a high electrical conductivity of 27.2 S/m due to the efficiently formed electrically conducting network with only ∼4 wt.% well-distributed TGO sheets that are coated on T-ZnO substrates. The excellent thermal and electrical conductivities are attributed to the efficient conductance pathways formed by the skeleton of ZnO whiskers and the enhanced phonon and electron transfers by TGO sheets.

Keywords

Graphene

ZnO tetrapod whiskers

Thermal conductivity

Electrical conductivity

Epoxy composites

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• DOC (418K)

Supplementary Data S1

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  Corresponding authors at: State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China.

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