Anisotropic and high thermal conductivity of epoxy composites containing multilayer Ti3C2Tx MXene nanoflakes

Ti3C2Tx/epoxy composites were prepared using multilayer Ti(3)C(2)T(x)nanoflakes, which were a massive but generally discarded by-product of few-layer Ti(3)C(2)T(x)MXene. The morphology of the fillers and their distribution in the composites were characterized by SEM, TEM and XRD. The thermal conductivities in both through-plane and in-plane directions of the composites were measured, which increased with the increasing in the filler content and the in-plane thermal conductivity increased more notably. For filler content of 30 wt%, the in-plane and through-plane thermal conductivities were improved to 3.14 and 0.294 Wm(-1) K-1, respectively, which was attributed to the enlarged effective aspect ratio of Ti(3)C(2)T(x)fillers and their aligned distribution in the epoxy matrix. The benefit of the enhanced anisotropic thermal conductivity on heat dissipation and temperature control was experimentally demonstrated and discussed.