Graphene/PANI hybrid film with enhanced thermal conductivity by in situ polymerization.

Heat dissipation in time is essential for long-term reliability of electrical devices. Graphene, with superior thermal conductivity and excellent flexibility, exhibits a potential to substitute currently used graphite film for thermal management. In this work, a free-standing film with enhanced thermal conductivity and better flexibility was achieved by a facile and environmentally friendly in situ polymerization. The ‘molecular welding’ strategy was introduced for preparation of graphitized graphene oxide/polyaniline (gGO/PANI) hybrid film, and the uniformly distributed PANI, serving as a solder, connected adjacent graphene sheets and filled in air voids of GO films. Scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy were used to determine the structure of PANI and the interaction between GO and PANI. The in-plane thermal conductivity of gGO/PANI film is enhanced by 38% to 1019.7 ± 0.1 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ with addition of 12 wt% PANI, compared with that of pristine gGO film. Besides, the gGO/PANI film shows better flexibility than gGO film after 180° bending for 500 times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]