A study on thermal conductivity of electroless Ni-B plated multi-walled carbon nanotubes-reinforced composites

In this work, the effects of electroless Ni-B plating on thermal conductivity and fracture toughness of Ni-B multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/epoxy matrix composites were examined. From the results, it was found that the thermal conductivity increases with increasing contents of electroless Ni-B MWCNTs. The critical stress intensity factor (K_IC) also increased with increasing contents of electroless Ni-B MWCNTs. However, it rather decreased at over 10phr. It is considered that this is because non-uniform distribution and partial entanglement occurred in case the contents of electroless Ni-B MWCNTs were high.