Enhancing the thermal conductivity of polyacrylonitrile- and pitch-based carbon fibers by grafting carbon nanotubes on them

The thermal conductivities of ultrahigh tensile strength polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based (T1000GB) and ultrahigh modulus pitch-based (K13D) carbon fibers with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grown on them using chemical vapor deposition were measured using a thermal diffusivity meter. The thermal conductivities of the resulting hybrid materials were calculated to be 18.6 ± 1.7 and 965.6 ± 30.0 W/m K for T1000GB and K13D, respectively, while the respective original conductivities were 12.6 ± 1.0 and 745.5 ± 16.0 W/m K. The results clearly show that the CNTs grafting improves the thermal conductivities of both types of fiber.