Exceptionally high thermal and electrical conductivity of three-dimensional graphene-foam-based polymer composites

Abstract

Graphene foams (GF) assembled with one- or few-layered ultrathin two-dimensional crystals have showed huge application potentials owing to their unique three-dimensional (3D) structure and superior properties. Here, we present a polymer-template-assisted assembly strategy for fabricating a novel class of 3D graphene architecture. A free-standing GF architecture has been built to act as thermal and electrical conduction paths in polymer composites. The obtained GF/polymer composites exhibit a high thermal conductivity (1.52 W mK⁻¹) and high electrical conductivity (3.8 × 10⁻² S cm⁻¹) at relatively low GF loading (5.0 wt%). The GF/polymer composites are potentially useful in advanced packaging materials of high power LED and microelectronic devices.