Fabrication and properties of thermally conductive adhesive tapes containing multilayer graphene patterns

In order to overcome the low thermal conductivity of pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs), multilayer graphene (MLG) pattern embedded PSA tapes (g-PSAs tapes) were fabricated in this study. First, an acrylic copolymer was synthesized and used as a component of a PSA. The glass transition temperature of the PSA and peel strength of the neat PSA tape were determined as-30 degrees C and 792 +/- 14 gf/25 mm, respectively. Next, g-PSA tapes were fabricated by laminating an uncrosslinked PSA tape onto MLG patterns on a PET film followed by curing. The MLG content of the g-PSA tapes was adjusted with the size of MLG patterns fabricated by using metal masks with various opening sizes. Unlike the neat PSA tape, the peel strength of the g-PSA tapes fluctuated during peeling because of the delamination of the graphene layers. The in-plane thermal conductivity of the stacked g-PSA-2 tape with a graphene content of 21.4 vol% was measured to be 5.51 Wm-1K-1. The mechanical durability of the g-PSA-1 and g-PSA-2 tapes was also measured through a folding test and no delamination of the tapes was observed after 10000 folding cycles.

Automated summary

In this study, multilayer graphene embedded pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes were fabricated to overcome the low thermal conductivity of pressure-sensitive adhesives. The tapes showed fluctuating peel strength due to the delamination of graphene layers during peeling. The thermal conductivity of the tapes with 21.4 vol% graphene content was measured to be 5.51 Wm-1K-1. The tapes also exhibited mechanical durability after 10000 folding cycles.