Flexibility, thermal properties and tribological performance of epoxy resin-based phase change composites films regulating via polyethylene glycol mixture synergy with boron nitride nanosheets

PEG mixture was innovatively added to the EP. • BNNS-OH enhanced mechanical properties and tribological properties. • EP possesses both flexibility and thermal storage simultaneously. • Flexibility, thermal and tribological enhancement mechanism. Commercial epoxy resin (EP) has been restricted in electronic packaging due to intrinsic brittleness and poor tribological performance. Herein, facile strategy for fabricating flexible, excellent thermal properties, mechanical property and tribological performance of EP-based composite film is proposed. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) mixture fabricated by polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG6K) and low molecular weight PEG (PEG0.8K, 1K, and 1.5K) and high thermal conductivity fillers hydroxylated boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS–OH) were introduced into EP (EPPB). The effects of PEG addition amount and molecular weight of low molecular weight on flexibility, mechanical, thermal and tribological properties have been systematically investigated. Non-covalent crosslinking EP and PEG mixture polymer network structure endows EPP with flexibility, stretching stress attained 21.04 MPa. Surprisingly, latent heat of EPPB can reach 62.28 J/g, few papers have been reported commercial EP that possess both flexibility and thermal storage properties. In addition, the results of tribological experiment indicated that average friction coefficient (COF) of EPPB achieve 0.1854 and ultralow wear rate of 19.79 × 10 −5 mm 3 /(N·m), demonstrating outstanding tribological performance. This work offers fresh method to obtain phase change composite films utilizing commercial EP in thermal management of flexible electronic packaging devices. Download: Download high-res image (336KB) Download: Download full-size image