Highly Intrinsic Thermal Conductivity of Aramid Nanofiber Films by Manipulating Intermolecular Hydrogen Bonding Interactions

Lightweight, flexible, and thermostable thermally conductive materials are essential for enhancing heat dissipation efficiency in advanced electronics. The development of intrinsic thermally conductive polymers is the key to expanding the space for improving the thermal conductivity of polymer-based thermal management materials. In order to balance the thermal conductivity and mechanical performance of bulk polymers, thermally conductive aramid nanofiber (ANF) films are assembled by manipulating the proton-donating ability of solvents. Compared to water as a conventional proton donor, ethanol-induced multi-scale structures composed of dense hydrogen bonding interaction, large grain size, and uniform fiber topology endow the resulting ANF films with enhanced intrinsic thermal conductivity up to 5.05 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ with a 34% increase, salient mechanical performance with the tensile strength of 181.4 MPa, and exceptional thermal stability higher than 500 °C. These outstanding properties of ANF films provide many possibilities for the preparation of polymer-based thermally conductive materials.