Promoting temperature control and energy conservation by smart thermal management using nanoparticle suspensions with tunable thermal conductivity

Smart thermal control technology is essential in modern technologies to manage heat transfer. However, most research has primarily been focused on the performance of thermal smart materials rather than integrating the materials into thermal smart components and devices. In this study, we proposed a kind of thermal smart system using thermal smart materials for promoting temperature control and energy conservation. Firstly, we prepared thermal smart materials using nanoparticle suspensions composed of silicone oil and graphene-based composite nanosheets. The variation of the thermal conductivity can be explained by our proposed two-step model. Then, we demonstrated a kind of thermal smart component based on thermal smart materials, whose thermal resistance can be continuously tuned by electric field. The thermal smart component has good temperature regulating ability, enabling the decrease of device temperature by 5.3 °C when the environmental temperature is 20 °C, the input heat flux is 3500 W/m2, and the electric field strength is 600 V/mm. An energy conservation of 10% can be achieved by using thermal smart component. The thermal smart component can work well in practical operation conditions with complex and varying heat-flux, showing great potential in various thermal management systems for electronic devices, spacecraft systems, and power batteries.