Highly thermally conductive epoxy-based phase-change composite materials for efficient chip thermal management

To address the challenge of balancing high thermal conductivity and high phase transition enthalpy in thermal phase change materials (PCMs), this research work designed and synthesized an epoxy resin ( TEMP ₀) containing a large number of ether bonds. When combined with polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000), a stable PCMs ( TEMP _x) was obtained, which exhibited excellent heat storage performance and effectively encapsulation ability. The phase transition latent heat reached up to 148.0 J/g, and the energy storage efficiency was as high as 94%. After 100 heating–cooling cycles, the enthalpy remained basically unchanged, demonstrating the excellent thermal cycling stability. Further introducing copper foam (CuF) into TEMP _x fabricated thermally conductive epoxy PCMs ( TEMP _x-Cuy). As the thermally conductive framework, the CuF significantly increased the thermal conductivity of TEMP _x-Cuy. TEMP ₈₀-Cu60 exhibits a high thermal conductivity of 8.263 W/(m·K), representing an approximately 33-fold increase compared to TEMP ₀. TEMP _x-Cuy effectively promotes heat dissipation in electronic devices and suppresses temperature rise. In simulated chip thermal management tests, the time for the chip surface temperature to rise from 30 °C to 90 °C is approximately 14 times that of the blank control group. The thermally conductive epoxy PCMs prepared in this work has the potential for application in the thermal management of electronic devices.