The polymer-based thermal interface materials with improved thermal conductivity, compression resilience, and electromagnetic interference shielding performance by introducing uniformly melamine foam

Polymer-based thermal interface materials (TIMs) have been widely used in electronics to enhance heat transfer through the chip to heat sink. However, it remains a severe challenge to build the efficient phonon transfer pathways for improving the thermal conductivity and heat dissipation ability to cope with the increasing power density. Nowadays, TIMs with introduced template have attracted a great deal of attention because of the continuously three-dimensional (3D) structures. Herein, the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with 3D networks was fabricated through the self-sacrificing template of melamine foam. Meanwhile, the reduced graphene oxide/natural rubber (rGO/NR) TIMs were prepared by the vacuum-assisted infiltration approach. As a result, the obtained TIMs exhibited the improved thermal conductivity (1.53 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹) and the good electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding performance (26 dB) in X band at the filler content of 1.15 vol%. The results proved that rGO/NR TIMs successfully achieved the balance performance between the thermal conductivity and EMI shielding performance, indicating a bright prospect in the application of next-generation electronics. More importantly, this strategy can provide valuable guideline for designing TIMs with the excellent comprehensive performance for the thermal management. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].