Scientists have created a material that is both a heat conductor and a heat insulator

Polymer Research Group at the Max Planck Institute and the University of Bayreuth has created a material that is unique in its kind, which can simultaneously be an excellent heat insulator and heat conductor.

In our daily life, heat insulators are also actively used (for example, for wall insulation houses) and heat conductors (for example, radiators for removing heat from working computer processors).

And often light and porous materials are dielectrics, and heavy substances, such as metals, are good conductors.

But scientists managed to combine in one substance, it would seem, incompatible, and this is how they did it.

What the new material consists of

In the course of numerous experiments, scientists took several of the thinnest glass plates and placed individual polymer chains between them.

In the material obtained in this way, the thermal conductivity began to depend on the direction in which the impact propagates.

So the thermal insulation properties of the material are recorded when the impact is perpendicular to the layers. And all because heat is nothing more than the vibration of molecules in a material, which is transmitted along a chain.

Due to the increase in the number of layers, this transmission becomes weaker and weaker.

But inside the layer itself, heat is perfectly transferred. At the same time, the spread of heat within the layer itself occurs rapidly, since there are no factors that restrain the spread of heat.

It was found that in the created material, the thermal conductivity inside the layer of the material itself is 40 times higher than the perpendicular heat propagation.

Scientists have compared the thermal conductivity along the layers to the thermal conductivity of a substance such as thermal paste for computers.

Thermal insulation for perpendicular spread is six times better than modern plastic.

For maximum efficiency of the material, scientists have precisely adjusted the layers. Thanks to this, the material turned out to be transparent, because the thickness of one layer is only one nanometer.

Where will the new material be used

Scientists believe that the new material can be used to ensure the performance of highly efficient light-emitting diodes.

Where the transparency of the material will allow the beam to pass unhindered, and on the other hand, it will effectively dissipate the generated heat in the perpendicular direction.

Scientists have shared the results of their work on the pages of the Internet portal Wiley Online Library.

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