The Effect of Porosity on Thermal Conductivity of Silicon Carbide Filled Polyproplyene Composite

Abstract

Silicon carbide filled Polypropylene (PP) composites are fabricated, where the compounding is carried out by using Z-blade mixer with filler loadings of 0wt%, 10wt%, 20wt% and 30wt%. Composite sheets produced from hot press molding process are prepared for testing samples. The effect of filler loadings and incorporation of coupling agent on density, porosity and thermal conductivity of SiC filled PP composites are studied. Thermal conductivity test is performed by using Digi Sense Scanning Thermometer apparatus. The results reported demonstrate that, the density and thermal conductivity of SiC filled PP composites increased with increasing filler loadings while the porosity decreased with increasing filler loadings. When treated with 5% titanate coupling agent (Lica-12), the increase of density for 10%SiC-90%PP and the increase of porosity for 30%SiC-90%PP composite can be observed. On the other hand, the increase of thermal conductivity can be observed for the composite treated with Lica-12 at 10% filler loading. However this treated SiC filled PP composites showed a decrease in thermal conductivity as filler loading increased.