Thermal characterization of carbon-rich boron carbonitride foams for thermal management applications

The increasing need to evacuate heat from electronic components encourages the use of new thermal materials. Motivated by the good heat convection of graphene foam (GF), we have integrated boron and nitrogen atoms into GF, thereby obtaining carbon-rich boron carbonitride (BCN) foam, which shows a significant improvement to its thermal characteristics. We used the infrared micro-thermography method and showed that carbon-rich BCN foam has an exceptionally large effective convection area and a high convection coefficient, which is comparable to that obtained under forced convection. Additionally, carbon-rich BCN foam presents remarkable thermal stability with a degradation temperature of ∼750 °C. Finally, we attached the carbon-rich BCN to an electric circuit and demonstrated its feasibility to evacuate heat from electronic components. Therefore, we pave the path for the integration of carbon-rich BCN foams in advanced thermal applications, such as thermal management reinforcement in composites and heat dissipation elements.