Graphene-based conformal coating for heat dissipation on printed circuit boards

Thermal management of electronic devices poses a constant challenge due to the ever-increasing heat fluxes and a great variety of cases that require non-standard engineering solutions. In this work, a novel conformal coating with enhanced thermal conductivity is suggested, which spreads heat effectively from a hot spot on a printed circuit board (PCB). This heat-dissipating composite is created by loading a polymer with graphene nano-platelets (GnP), yielding a two orders of magnitude higher thermal conductivity (33 W/m K) than the neat polymer (0.2 W/m K). The concept, processing and application of the coating to a model PCB, bearing a heat generating component, are presented. It is demonstrated experimentally that, depending on the filler loading levels, the component temperature is substantially lowered when the coating is applied, with the temperature drop reaching up to 35 °C under the given conditions. The numerical simulations offer further insights into the analysis of system performance and corroborate the experimental results. The suggested thin conformal coating can be easily used for thermal management in a wide range of applications in the electronic industry.