Improved wetting behavior and thermal conductivity of the three-dimensional nickel foam/epoxy composites with graphene oxide as interfacial modifier

The partial reduced graphene oxide (P-rGO) sheets-wrapped nickel foams (NF@P-rGO) were prepared by hydrothermal method, and then their epoxy composites were fabricated via a simple drop-wetting process. The P-rGO sheets on the metal networks could effectively improve the compatibility between nickel foam and epoxy resin, thus greatly accelerate the wetting of epoxy resin on the foams and avoid cracks in the network–polymer interface. Owing to the existence of high-efficiency conductive metal networks, the NF@P-rGO/epoxy composite has a high thermal conductivity of 0.584 W m K, which is 2.6 times higher than that of neat epoxy resin. Additionally, owing to the improved wetting ability, NF@P-rGO-10 wt% boron nitride (BN) microsheets/epoxy composites could be fabricated and have a further higher thermal conductivity of 0.71 W m K. We believe the use of P-rGO as a novel surface modifier and the following liquid polymer drop-wetting could be an effective method to obtain novel and outstanding metal foam/polymer composites.