Temperature-dependent thermal and mechanical properties of flexible functional PDMS/paraffin composites.

As phase change functional polymer composites, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and paraffin composites exhibit excellent performance on temperature dependent thermal and mechanical properties. In this paper, PDMS/paraffin composites with uniform microstructure are prepared by the melting mixing method with paraffin as filler and PDMS as matrix. The modification of PDMS by paraffin components owns both advantages on excellent flexibility and heat absorption capacity. Systematic experiments results are performed to illustrate the DSC specter, stress-strain curves and other properties varying with temperature. The obtained composites can be an ideal material for soft thermal management substrate of flexible electronics or phase change heat sink of batteries and this study might be helpful for the design and fabrication in the wide potential applications. Image 1 • Composites thermal management mechanism is paraffin solid-liquid phase transition that absorbing exceeding heat energy. • Composites comprising 30 wt % paraffin can be used as flexible thermal management substrate for epidermal electronics. • Phase transition, thermal management and transmittance change of the composites occur at the paraffin melting point. • Paraffin melting is the reason for viscoelastic transition and transmittance change with temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]