Interlayer growth of SiC nanowires in graphene aerogel for thermal conductivity enhancement of epoxy resin and its mechanism

The chemical reduction method is a simple and popular way to contrast the graphene network to improve the polymer matrix's thermal conductivity. And hybrid thermal conductive fillers composed of two or more mixed fillers through chemical synthesis usually have better thermal conductivity because of the synergistic effort. In this work, silicon carbide nanowires (SiC NWs) in graphene aerogels are synthesized with the chemical vapor deposition method, acting as bridges for phonon transmission between adjacent graphene sheets. The RGO/SiC NWs aerogel-endowed EP composites have a high thermal conductivity of 3.79 W/mK at a filler loading of 5.5 wt%, and 4.23 W/mK at a filler loading of 7.5 wt%, which is 1895% and 2126% higher than pure EP resin, respectively. Finite element analysis (FEA) is utilized to analyze the heat conduction mechanism of composites at last.