Fabrication and properties of thermally conductive epoxy resin nanocomposites filled with fGNPs/PNBRs hybrid fillers

Hybrid fillers of functionalized graphite nanoplatelets/powdery nitrile butadiene rubbers (fGNPs/PNBRs) are simultaneously introduced into bisphenol-A epoxy resin (E-51) to fabricate fGNPs/PNBRs/E-51 nanocomposites with excellent thermal conductivities, good electrical conductivities and ideal mechanical properties. For a given 5 wt% PNBRs loading, both the thermal and electrical conductivities of the fGNPs/PNBRs/E-51 nanocomposites are increased with the increasing addition of fGNPs. The thermally conductive coefficient λ of the fGNPs/PNBRs/E-51 nanocomposite containing 20 wt% fGNPs and 5 wt% PNBRs is improved to 0.880 W/mK, 4 times higher than those of pure E-51 (0.201 W/mK) and PNBRs/E-51 composite (0.193 W/mK), and the corresponding electrical conductivity is also improved to 2.9×10^-5 S/cm. The thermal stabilities of the fGNPs/PNBRs/E-51 nanocomposites are increased with the increasing addition of fGNPs.