Defects vibrations engineering for enhancing interfacial thermal transport in polymer composites

YJ Zhou and R Ciarla and A Boonkird and S Raza and T Nguyen and JW Zhou and NC Osti and E Mamontov and Z Jiang and XB Zuo and J Ranasinghe and WG Hu and B Scott and JH Chen and DK Hensley and SX Huang and J Liu and MD Li and YF Xu, SCIENCE ADVANCES, 11, eadp6516 (2025).

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp6516

To push upper boundaries of thermal conductivity in polymer composites, understanding of thermal transport mechanisms is crucial. Despite extensive simulations, systematic experimental investigation on thermal transport in polymer composites is limited. To better understand thermal transport processes, we design polymer composites with perfect fillers (graphite) and defective fillers (graphite oxide), using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a matrix model. Measured thermal conductivities of similar to 1.38 +/- 0.22 W m(-1) K-1 in PVA/defective filler composites is higher than those of similar to 0.86 +/- 0.21 W m(-1) K-1 in PVA/perfect filler composites, while measured thermal conductivities in defective fillers are lower than those of perfect fillers. We identify how thermal transport occurs across heterogeneous interfaces. Thermal transport measurements, neutron scattering, quantum mechanical modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that vibrational coupling between PVA and defective fillers at PVA/filler interfaces enhances thermal conductivity, suggesting that defects in polymer composites improve thermal transport by promoting this vibrational coupling.

Return to Publications page