High-Performance Liquid Metal/Polyborosiloxane Elastomer toward Thermally Conductive Applications

With the combination of high flexibility and thermal property, thermally conductive elastomers have played an important role in daily life. However, traditional thermally conductive elastomers display limited stretchability and toughness, seriously restricting their further development in practical applications. Herein, a high-performance composite is fabricated by dispersing room-temperature liquid metal microdroplets (LM) into a polyborosiloxane elastomer (PBSE). Due to the unique solid-liquid coupling mechanism, the LM can deform with the PBSE matrix, achieving higher fracture strain (401%) and fracture toughness (2164 J/m(2)). Meanwhile, the existence of LM microdroplets improves the thermal conductivity of the composite. Interestingly, the LM/PBSE also exhibits remarkable anti-impact, adhesion capacities under complex loading environments. As a novel stretchable elastomer with enhanced mechanical and thermal behavior, the LM/PBSE shows good application prospects in the fields of thermal camouflages, stretchable heat-dissipation matrixes, and multifunctional shells for electronic devices.

Automated summary

Researchers have successfully fabricated a high-performance composite by dispersing liquid metal microdroplets into a polyborosiloxane elastomer. The composite exhibits higher stretchability, toughness, and thermal conductivity, and also possesses anti-impact and adhesion capacities. It shows promising application prospects in thermal camouflages, heat-dissipation matrixes, and multifunctional shells for electronic devices.