The influence of liquid crystalline structure and ceramic nanoparticles inclusion on thermal conductivity of epoxy based thermosets

Epoxy nanocomposites with ceramic nanoparticles and liquid crystalline epoxy thermosets have been prepared and characterized with the aim to improve thermal conductivity of polymeric networks, without sacrificing processibility of reactive mixture and electrical insulation of final products. The influence of mesogenic liquid crystalline structure and fillers addition on thermal, mechanical and dielectric properties have been investigated by means of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Dynamic-mechanical analysis (DMA) and volume resistivity. Morphological investigations by Optical Microscopy (OM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) has been also performed. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.