Significantly enhanced thermal conductivity of the aramid nanofiber composite film with GO and Ag nanoflakes for thermal management application

The development of composite materials with excellent thermal conductivity is attracting extensive attention to meet the increasing heat concentration challenges in both power and electronic equipment. Previous strategies for improving the thermal conductivities usually accompanied by the cost of mechanical strength. Herein, we propose a new strategy for developing both mechanically strong and thermally conductive composite films. The aramid nanofibers (ANF) are well prepared with introducing Ag nanoflakes and graphene oxide (GO) via vacuum-assisted filtration and hot-pressing treatment. Results indicate the synergistic effects of low dimension materials have resulted in a tightly arranged phonon network construction. The in-plane thermal conductivity of the prepared ANF/Ag/GO film reaches 9.84 W m(-1) K-1, about 371% higher than that of pure ANF. Meanwhile, the strong hydrogen bond formed between the functional group of GO and the amide group of ANFs plays a synergistic strengthening and toughening role at the complex interface, and the tensile strength reaches 231 MPa. We believe that these findings shed some light on the design and fabrication of multifunctional materials for thermal management applications.