Enhanced thermal conductivity of epoxy composites using hollow spheres MXene frameworks

A new 2D material labeled MXenes exhibits excellent properties and has been widely applied in many fields. However, due to the poor thermal stability of MXene Ti3C2Tx, few researches focus on the thermal conductivity of MXene Ti3C2Tx. In this work, the framework of MXene Ti3C2Tx hollow spheres/epoxy composites (FMX/EX) was prepared by electrostatic self-assembling and sacrificed polystyrene (PS) templates. The four different sizes of PS were synthesized to study size matching between templates and Ti3C2Tx nanosheets. The FMX-0.74/EX composite corresponding template of 0.74 μm PS in diameter has the highest thermal conductivity of 0.32 W/m·K, benefiting from the pathways of thermal transfer constructed by the framework of MXene Ti3C2Tx hollow spheres. In addition, epoxy composites exhibit well thermal stability during the heating and cooling cycles. Finally, the results show that MXenes have potential in applying the thermal management field.