Magnetic enhancement of thermal conductivity in copper-carbon nanotube composites produced by electroless plating, freeze drying, and spark plasma sintering

摘要

A carbon nanotube and copper composite was synthesized using electroless plating and freeze-drying for green processing, and spark plasma sintering for densification. A magnetic field of 1 T was applied during the freeze-drying process to align the carbon nanotubes along the main axis. Results show that the magnetization process enhanced the alignment and thermal conductivity properties of the final Cu-CNT product (up to 386% in one example), but the properties were lowered overall due to interfacial bonding and particle mixing difficulties, with the results being 5-15% of the thermal conductivity of pure copper.