Manufacturing Graphene-Encapsulated Copper Particles by Chemical Vapor Deposition in a Cold Wall Reactor

Graphical Steady as she goes : Graphene-encapsulated Cu nanoparticles (GCPs) fabricated by chemical vapor deposition in a cold wall reactor not only exhibited an outstanding thermal stability up to 179 °C, but also display an excellent thermal conductive performance in a thermally conductive adhesive (TCA). Functional fillers, such as Ag, are commonly employed for effectively improving the thermal or electrical conductivity in polymer composites. However, a disadvantage of such a strategy is that the cost and performance cannot be balanced simultaneously. Therefore, the drive to find a material with both a cost efficient fabrication process and excellent performance attracts intense research interest. In this work, inspired by the core–shell structure, we developed a facile manufacturing method to prepare graphene-encapsulated Cu nanoparticles (GCPs) through utilizing an improved chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system with a cold wall reactor. The obtained GCPs could retain their spherical shape and exhibited an outstanding thermal stability up to 179 °C. Owing to the superior thermal conductivity of graphene and excellent oxidation resistance of GCPs, the produced GCPs are practically used in a thermally conductive adhesive (TCA), which commonly consists of Ag as the functional filler. Measurement shows a substantial 74.6 % improvement by partial replacement of Ag with GCPs.