Multifunctional polymer nanocomposites with uniaxially aligned liquid crystal polymer fibrils and graphene nanoplatelets

Polymer nanocomposites have actively been studied to replace metals in different emerging applications because of their light weight, superior manufacturability, and low processing cost. For example, extensive research efforts have been made to develop advanced thermally conductive polymer nanocomposites, with good processability, for heat management applications. In this study, liquid crystal polymer (LCP)-based nanocomposites have shown to possess much higher effective thermal conductivity (keff) (i.e., as high as 2.58 W/m K) than neat polymers (i.e., ∼0.2–0.4 W/m K). The fibrillation of LCP in LCP-graphene nanoplatelet (GNP) nanocomposites also demonstrated more pronounced increase in keff than that of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS)-GNP nanocomposites. Furthermore, ultra-drawing of LCP-GNP nanocomposite led to additional increase in the nanocomposite's keff because of the alignments of LCP fibrils and the embedded GNP. Experimental results also revealed that, unlike keff, the electrical conductivity (σ) of nanocomposites was unaffected by the types of polymer matrix. This exhibited that the keff and σ were promoted by different mechanisms, suggesting a potential route to tailor polymer nanocomposite's keff and σ independently.