Grafting rubber chains onto boron nitride nanosheets for highly flexible, thermally conductive composites

An ultra-flexible, thermally conductive and electrically insulating composite paper based on BNNSs was fabricated by vacuum filtration. The paper was prepared via a facile two-step coating/grafting modification process. The surface of BNNSs was firstly wrapped by polyrhodanine and subsequently rubber chains were mechanochemically grafted onto the polyrhodanine coating. In addition, by controlling the content of grafted rubber chains, a flexible and electrically insulating composite paper with an in-plane thermal conductivity of up to 451 Wm(-1)K(-1) has been achieved. This paper may have potential applications as high performance thermal management materials in electronics.