Significant Enhancement of Thermal Conductivity in Nanofibrillated Cellulose Films with Low Mass Fraction of Nanodiamond.

High thermal conductive nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) hybrid films based on nanodiamond (ND) were fabricated by a facile vacuum filtration technique. In this issue, the thermal conductivity (TC) on the in-plane direction of the NFC/ND hybrid film had a significant enhancement of 775.2% at a comparatively low ND content (0.5 wt %). The NFC not only helps ND to disperse in the aqueous medium stably but also plays a positive role in the formation of the hierarchical structure. ND could form a thermal conductive pathway in the hierarchical structures under the intermolecular hydrogen bonds. Moreover, the hybrid films composed of zero-dimensional ND and one-dimensional NFC exhibit remarkable mechanical properties and optical transparency. The NFC/ND hybrid films possessing superior TC, mechanical properties, and optical transparency can open applications for portable electronic equipment as a lateral heat spreader.

A Green Plastic Constructed from Cellulose and Functionalized Graphene with High Thermal Conductivity.

It is urgent to fabricate a class of green plastics to substitute synthetic plastics with increasing awareness of sustainable development of an ecological environment and economy. In this work, a novel green plastic constructed from cellulose and functionalized graphene has been explored. The mechanical properties and thermal stability of the resultant cellulose/functionalized graphene composite plastics (CGPs) equal or even exceed those of synthetic plastics. Moreover, the in-plane thermal conductivity of CGPs can reach 9.0 W·m-1·K-1 with only 6 wt % functionalized graphene loading. These superior properties are attributed to the strong hydrogen-bonding interaction between cellulose and functionalized graphene, the uniform dispersion of functionalized graphene, and the alignment structure of CGPs. Given the promising synergistic performances and ecofriendly features of CGPs, we envisage that CGPs as novel green plastics could play important roles in thermal management devices.

Highly Anisotropic Thermal Conductivity of Layer-by-Layer Assembled Nanofibrillated Cellulose/Graphene Nanosheets Hybrid Films for Thermal Management.

An anisotropic thermally conductive film with tailorable microstructures and macroproperties is fabricated using a layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of graphene oxide (GO) and nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) on a flexible NFC substrate driven by hydrogen bonding interactions, followed by chemical reduction process. The resulting NFC/reduced graphene oxide (RGO) hybrid film reveals an orderly hierarchical structure in which the RGO nanosheets exhibit a high degree of orientation along the in-plane direction. The assembly cycles dramatically increase the in-plane thermal conductivity (λX) of the hybrid film to 12.6 W·m-1·K-1, while the cross-plane thermal conductivity (λZ) shows a lower value of 0.042 W·m-1·K-1 in the hybrid film with 40 assembly cycles. The thermal conductivity anisotropy reaches up to λX/λZ = 279, which is substantially larger than that of similar polymeric nanocomposites, indicating that the LbL assembly on a flexible NFC substrate is an efficient technique for the preparation of polymeric nanocomposites with improved heat conducting property. Moreover, the layered hybrid film composed of 1D NFC and 2D RGO exhibits synergetic mechnical properties with outstanding flexibility and a high tensile strength (107 MPa). The combination of anisotropic thermal conductivity and superior mechanical performance may facilitate the applications in thermal management.