Defects vibrations engineering for enhancing interfacial thermal transport in polymer composites
To push upper boundaries of thermal conductivity in polymer composites, understanding of thermal transport mechanisms is crucial. Despite extensive simulations, systematic experimental investigation on thermal transport in polymer composites is limited. To better understand thermal transport processes, we design polymer composites with perfect fillers (graphite) and defective fillers (graphite oxide), using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a matrix model. Measured thermal conductivities of ~1.38 ± 0.22 W m<sup>-1</sup> K<sup>-1</sup> in PVA/defective filler composites is higher than those of ~0.86 ± 0.21 W m<sup>-1</sup> K<sup>-1</sup> in PVA/perfect filler composites, while measured thermal conductivities in defective fillers are lower than those of perfect fillers. We identify how thermal transport occurs across heterogeneous interfaces. Thermal transport measurements, neutron scattering, quantum mechanical modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that vibrational coupling between PVA and defective fillers at PVA/filler interfaces enhances thermal conductivity, suggesting that defects in polymer composites improve thermal transport by promoting this vibrational coupling.
Authors
- Mingda Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7055-6368)
- Dale K. Hensley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8763-7765)
- Eugene Mamontov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5684-2675)
- Jùn Líu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7335-5860)
- Shengxi Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3618-9074)
- Yanfei Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4809-2832)
- Jiawei Zhou
- Jihua Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6879-5936)
- Weiguo Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7868-1657)
- Artittaya Boonkird
- Xiaobing Zuo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0134-4804)
- Naresh C. Osti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0213-2299)
- Jeewan Ranasinghe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7744-5644)
- Thanh Nguyen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3677-2160)
- Robert Ciarla
- Zhang Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3503-8909)
- Saqlain Raza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2623-1777)
- Yijie Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9896-9662)
- Brendan Scott
Institutions
- Argonne National Laboratory (US)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- North Carolina State University (US)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Rice University (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2025-01-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adp6516
- Citations
- 28
- Primary Topic
- Thermal properties of materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 14.50
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Battelle
- Office of Science
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory