Antioxidant-based phase-change thermal interface materials with high thermal stability

This work provides phase-change thermal interface materials (TIMs) with high thermal stability and high heat of fusion. They are based on antioxidants mainly in the form of hydrocarbons with linear segments. The thermal stability is superior to paraffin wax and four commercial phase-change materials (PCMs). The use of 98.0 wt.% thiopropionate antioxidant (SUMILIZER TP-D) with 2.0 wt.% sterically half-hindered phenolic antioxidant (GA80) as the matrix and the use of 16 vol.% boron nitride particles as the solid component give a PCM with a 100°C lifetime indicator of 5.3 years, in contrast to 0.95 year or less for the commercial PCMs. The heat of fusion is much higher than those of commercial PCMs; the values for antioxidants with nonbranched molecular structures exceed that of wax; the value for one with a branched structure is slightly below that of wax. The phase-change properties are degraded by heating at 150°C much less than those of the commercial PCMs. The stability of the heat of fusion upon phase-change cycling is also superior. The viscosity is essentially unaffected by heating at 150°C. Commercial PCMs give slightly lower values of the thermal contact conductance for the case of rough (12 μm) mating surfaces, in spite of the lower values of the bond-line thickness.