Construction of interconnected SiC particles attached rGO structure in epoxy composites to achieve significant thermal conductivity enhancement

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has been excellent three-dimensional network carries due to unique flexibility and high thermal conductivity. However, restricted by excellent electrical property of rGO, it remains blocking to fabricate high performance polymer composites applied in the electronic packaging field. In this work, a novel GO-assisted method was used to prepare different rGO@SiC structure as efficient heat pathways in polymer composites achieving desirable performance. The as-prepared epoxy composite, at a filler loading of 30 wt% and SiC particles of 600 nm, exhibited not only a high thermal conductivity (1.02 W/mK) but also the lowest electrical conductivity (1.18 × 10 −12 S/cm). An effective medium theory model (EMT) was constructed to perfectly predict the thermal conductivity of the composites and precisely calculate the interfacial thermal resistance. The research provides a creative insight to the design of rGO structure and high-performance composites with a bright application prospect in advanced thermal managing materials.