Thermal conductivity measurement of an individual millimeter-long expanded graphite ribbon using a variable-length T-type method

Expanded graphite (EG) is a well-known carbon derivative and widely used as the thermally conductive enhancer for thermal management composites. However, the investigation on thermal conductivity measurement of an individual EG particle is still unexploited, which prevents the exploration of the coupling mechanism between EG and matrices and further measures for thermal conductivity enhancement. Herein, using a variable-length T-type method, we measure the thermal conductivity of an individual expanded graphite ribbon (EGR) obtained by mechanically compressing a separate EG particle. The EGR has a micrometer-sized thickness and a millimeter-sized length. By changing the sample length while maintaining the contact junction, we simultaneously obtained the thermal conductivity of the EGR and the thermal contact resistance between the sample and the probe. The longitudinal thermal conductivity of the EGR reaches up to 335.6±27.4 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ at room temperature and decreases to 254.8±20.8 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ as the temperature rises from 300 K to 380 K. With a higher thermal conductivity than most graphene paper products and some carbon fibers, this low-cost nanocarbon-based material exhibits a great advantage in the development of thermally conductive composites, and the presented accurate thermal conductivity provides indispensable data for the rational design of composites.