Investigation on microstructure and thermal properties of graphene-nanoplatelet/palmitic acid composites

Graphene-nanoplatelets (GNPs) were added into melting palmitic acid (PA) to prepare GNP/PA composites. Experimental results revealed that the temperature has little effect on the thermal conductivity of GNP/PA in either solid state or liquid state. Generally, thermal conductivity of GNP/PA increases with the addition of GNPs. There are two sudden increases in thermal conductivity for GNP/PA. One is at 0.5 wt% where GNPs begin to congregate and the thermal conductivity of GNP/PA increases suddenly. The other is at 5.0 wt% where the GNP aggregates are large enough to contact each other and the thermal conductivity of GNP/PA spurts with more GNP loadings.