Thermally Conductive Plastic Heat Sink

Modifying plastics to improve their thermal conductivity is a burgeoning area of opportunity for a handful of compounders.

Thermally conductive plastic heat sink.

High structural bond strength in severe environments. This allows for 3d printing of new heat transfer products for electronics thermal management heat exchangers mold tooling and many other industries. With identical geometry a tcpoly 3d printed plastic heat sink 6 w m k can perform within 5 c of an aluminum heat sink despite significantly lower thermal conductivity. Thermal management once meant a few well placed fans vents and aluminum heat sinks.

Bayer material science has announced makrolon polycarbonate as the latest addition to its family of heat resistant plastics designed specifically for led heat sink applications. But today s small hot electronics can benefit from new ways to keep cool like using thermally conductive plastics. Our first commercial product the ice9 thermally conductive filament is the world s highest thermal conductivity 3d printing plastic and can conduct heat 50x higher than traditional plastics. Lighter weight lower cost and greater impact strength moldability and customization are rapidly driving demand for thermoplastics that help keep electronics lighting and car engines cool.

With electronic devices gaining power and losing bulk design engineers have really started to feel the heat. The plot demonstrates the impact of thermal conductivity on the cooling power of a heat sink under a natural convection cooling regime. Henkel thermal adhesives create a mechanical attachment of a component to a heat sink with thermal transfer properties and without the need for additional fasteners. The heat sink can be produced from the thermally conductive plastic material by interjection molding of the thermally conductive plastic material optionally followed by applying a coating layer.

Until fairly recently that is. Thermally conductive plastics from ensinger come into their own in applications where metals have distinct drawbacks. Polyone s thermally conductive compounds are used in automotive and e e applications such as led lighting heat sinks and electronic enclosures. A bright future for thermally conductive plastics.

Heat sinks and other heat removal applications are among the last areas where thermoplastics inherent thermal insulators have yet to replace metals. And analysis showed that using a metal heat sink with a higher thermal conductivity would have only a minor impact on temperatures and heat management but would have a major influence on cost and weight. Their free formability allows heat sink structures to be configured to provide precisely the required heat distribution. Thermally conductive plastic for led heat sinks reduces lighting costs.