• Mitra, Arijit
• Pradhan, Sunil Kumar
• Sahoo, Krishna Rani
• Kar, Subrat
• Satpathy, Bijoy Kumar
• Tharangattu Narayanan, Narayanan
• Sahoo, Mihir Ranjan
• Polai, Balaram
• Samal, Aiswarya
• Ajayan, Pulickel M.
• Satyam, Parlapalli V.
• Nayak, Saroj K.

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Metal matrix composites have attracted extensive attention from both the research and industrial perspective. In this study, we prepared aluminum-reduced graphene oxide (Al–rGO) composites with enhanced thermal conductivity in an easy single-step process. Pristine Al shows a thermal conductivity of 175 Wm−1K−1 (standard deviation &amp;lt;5%), which increases to 293 Wm−1K−1 for an Al–rGO composite with 1% rGO. Analysis of theoretical models shows that a higher percentage of rGO inside the Al matrix creates a continuous network resulting in more available phase space through which heat carrier phonons travel with less scattering, and hence thermal conductivity of the composite increases. Furthermore, Al–rGO composites show an ∼5% increase in microhardness compared with pristine Al. The electrical resistivity of the composite is comparable to that of pristine Al for a narrow weight percentage of rGO, whereas a 70% enhancement in the thermal conductivity of the composite is observed for the same weight percentage range, suggesting possibilities for exploiting both high electrical and thermal conductivities for various applications.</jats:p>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• resistivity
• phase
• aluminium
• laser emission spectroscopy
• composite
• thermal conductivity