Thermal conductivity and stability of nanosize carbon-black-filled PDMS: fuel cell perspective

Carbon black filled polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was considered as a prospective bipolar plate material candidate for a fuel cell. In this perspective, thermal conductivity and stability of the composites were investigated. Samples with filler weight fractions from 10% to 25% were prepared. The Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) study under oxygen atmosphere has shown good thermal stability of the composite up to 300 degrees C. Thermal conductivity as a function of temperature and filler fraction was measured. Results have shown excellent improvement in the PDMS thermal conductivity with carbon black fillers (an order of magnitude, when compared with the pure PDMS). We found that PDMS-CB composites with lesser CB loading (10 wt%) achieve thermal conductivity on par with the reported values in the literature of epoxy resin-CB composites (with 70wt% loading).