Jingyi Men, Binxue Xiang, Xinyuan Mao, Weining Ren, Zelong Yang, Shengrui Zhang, Lei Wang*. Ultra-flexible and mechanically strong silver nanowires/PBO nanofibers composite films for thermal management and photothermal conversion. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2025, 700: 138352. 2024IF= 9.7.

DOI:  10.1016/j.jcis.2025.138352

Abstract

Insulating polymer-based thermally conductive materials play a crucial role in the thermal management of electronic devices. In this work, silver nanowires (AgNWs) are subjected to surface amino functionalization (AgNWs-NH₂), and subsequently compounded with poly (p-phenylene benzobisthiazole) (PBO) nanofibers (PNF) to prepare AgNWs-NH₂/PNF composite films by “sol-gel-film conversion technique”. When the content of AgNWs-NH₂ is 50 wt%, AgNWs-NH2/PNF composite films present volume resistivity of 6.41×107 Ω·cm, thermal conductivity (λ) of 21.08 W/(m·K) and tensile strength of 113.7 MPa. When AgNWs-NH₂/PNF composite films are attached to a resistance sheet and heated, the stable surface temperature rapidly increases from room temperature to 85.3°C, which is 12.2°C lower than that of the original resistance sheet. In addition, AgNWs-NH₂/PNF composite films also have potential application prospects in the field of photothermal conversion. Under the irradiation of simulated sunlight with a power density of 120 mW/cm², the surface temperature of AgNWs-NH₂/PNF composite films rapidly increases from room temperature to 72.8°C. The obtained AgNWs-NH₂/PNF composite films with excellent thermal conductivity, electrical insulation, mechanical properties and photothermal conversion performance greatly broaden the applications of PNF-based composite films in high-end thermal management fields such as flexible electronic devices and aerospace.