Study on the effects of incremental curing on the thermal conductivity, insulation, and mechanical properties of thermal conductive silicone rubber

Abstract With the development of fields such as electronics and telecommunications, electronic devices are becoming more integrated and powerful. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for high thermal conductive and insulating flexible materials. Silicone rubber (SR), as an excellent flexible substrate, is often combined with various thermal conductive fillers to enhance its thermal conductivity (TC). Carbon materials are commonly used as thermally conductive fillers. To improve the insulation performance while maintaining the TC of the material, uncured SR filled with boron nitride (BN) is used as an insulating layer on the same substrate. The TC of the once-cured BN/SR composite and the incremental cured BN/SR composite as a coating are 0.492 W/(mK) and 0.484 W/(mK), respectively, with a BN content of 10 vol%. The TC of carbon fiber (CF)/SR composites before and after surface treatment with BN/SR are 1.760 W/(mK) and 1.682 W/(mK), respectively, with a CF content of 20 vol%. The volume resistivity of the former is less than 10 4 Ω cm, while the latter is greater than 10 14 Ω cm.