Boron nitride nanosheets: Large-scale exfoliation in NaOH-LiCl solution and their highly thermoconductive insulating nanocomposite paper with PI via electrospinning-electrospraying

The miniaturisation of electronic components requires high-performance materials with insulating and thermal conductive properties for electronic packaging and thermal management. Boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS) are a desirable thermal conductive filler due to their excellent thermal stability, chemical stability, and high thermoconductivity. However, it remains challenging to mass produce ultra-thin large-scale BNNS and combine them with small amounts of polymers to fabricate malleable thermoconductive composites for flexible electronic devices. Herein, we report a new method to prepare BNNS at high yield by high-temperature oxidation treatment followed by hydrothermal exfoliation in NaOH-LiCl solution. We further fabricated flexible, insulating, and highly thermoconductive BNNS/PI (polyimide) nanocomposite paper, via a scalable layer-by-layer process that involves electrospinning of PI fibres and eletrospraying of BNNS. The prepared BNNS have a transverse size of 1.18 µm and a thickness of 1–2.9 nm, with a high yield of 75.48% at a concentration of 3.38 mg mL− 1. The BNNS/PI nanocomposite paper exhibited an ultrahigh in-plane thermal conductivity (7.58 W m−1 K−1), 2005% higher than that of the pure PI nanofibre composite. This simple method has wide application potential in next-generation electronic devices to design thermal interface materials with excellent electrical insulation, thermostability, and flexibility.