Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/K034405/1
Title:	Thermal conduction in an electrical insulating polymer
Principal Investigator:	Ronca, Dr S
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	Teijin Aramid BV
Department:	Materials
Organisation:	Loughborough University
Scheme:	First Grant - Revised 2009
Starts:	01 February 2014	Ends:	31 July 2016	Value (£):	98,648
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Materials Characterisation Materials Processing Materials Synthesis & Growth
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Manufacturing
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 25 Jun 2013 Engineering Prioritisation Meeting 25 June 2013 Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The drive of many electronic technologies towards miniaturisation, weight reduction and integration has increased the need for smart materials that can cope with new arising issues, such as the need for fast heat dissipation. The same issue is faced in electric motors and generators, automotive, solar panels, batteries, and heat exchangers in power generation. Metals can be used due to their high thermal and electrical conductivity, but they are expensive and rather heavy: for this reason, research is trying to replace metals with cheaper and lighter materials. An obvious choice is to use polymeric materials (plastic) that, in addition to the lower cost and weight, also have the advantage of being easily processable in a variety of shapes and sizes. However, polymers usually have very low thermal conductivities and suitable fillers (metal or ceramic particles being the most common ones) are added to increase the conductivity to the desired levels. The use of composites has drawbacks related to the need of further processing of the material, the change in mechanical properties due to the addition of fillers and the problems related to the end-of-life disposal. Moreover, the amount of fillers should be carefully controlled if the target is to get a material that is both thermally conductive and electrically insulating. In principle, heat conduction could happen in polymers through the mechanism of lattice vibrations: the reason for the very low conductivity observed for these materials is mainly related to the random orientation and entanglement of polymer chains. It has been recently demonstrated that, if the polymer chains of a simple polymers such as polyethylene can be aligned, high thermal conductivity can be achieved in the direction of alignment. In order to achieve high conductivities, it is also desirable to have very long polymer chains, to minimise lattice defects brought by the chain ends. This is the case for Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE): however, the chain alignment process for this material is rather cumbersome and demands the use of large amounts of solvent to 'disentangle' the very long chains. The proposed research aims to overcome these issues, building on our success at fine tuning the molecular characteristics and improving the processability of UHMWPE. We have devised a synthetic strategy that enables us to directly obtain UHMWPE with a reduced number of entanglements. We have demonstrated that this material can be easily processed, without the need for any solvent, to give tapes and filaments with high chain alignment. Moreover, our method offers the unprecedented possibility to tailor the molecular weight of the polymer as well as the chain alignment, by simply changing the reaction or processing conditions. In this project, we wish to apply the knowledge that we have developed on "disentangled UHMWPE" to study the effects that molecular structure and orientation have on the thermal conductivity of this material. The results coming from this project will enable us to realise a light-weight, cheap, easy to process and to recycle material where the thermal conductivity can be tuned in a range of useful values by suitable modifications of the synthetic and processing steps.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Organisation Website:	http://www.lboro.ac.uk