Improvement of the thermal transport performance of a poly(vinylidene fluoride) composite film including silver nanowire

The miniaturization trend of electronic devices requires that components have a high heat dissipation in industrial applications and in daily life. In this context, a highly thermally conductive film was fabricated with silver nanowire (AgNW) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) with a bar-coating method. The thermal transport performance and mechanism of the AgNW/PVDF composite film were investigated. The through-plane and in-plane thermal conductivity of the AgNW/PVDF composite film reached 0.31 and 1.61 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, respectively; these values far exceeded those of the pristine PVDF film. The experiment illustrated that the thermally conductive pathways formed successfully in the PVDF substrate with the addition of AgNW, and the heat tended to transfer along the thermally conductive pathway rather than along the PVDF substrate. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 43554.