Using SAXS approach to estimate thermal conductivity of polystyrene/zirconia nanocomposite by exploiting strong contrast technique

Abstract In this study, the effective thermal conductivity of a polymer/ZrO2 nanocomposite material has been calculated based on small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data. These SAXS results have been used to calculate statistical two-point correlation functions of the nanostructure. A statistical continuum approach based on higher-order correlation functions has been utilized to estimate the effective thermal conductivity of this zirconia-filled polymer. A strong-contrast formulation was used to predict the effective conductivity of the nanocomposite by means of two- and three-point statistical functions with an approximation of the three-point probability functions for a two-phase media. The thermal conductivity of ZrO2 particles is estimated using a semi-inverse application of the strong contrast technique for a buckypaper material sample. Comparison of the simulated results with our experimental results for polystyrene/ZrO2 nanocomposite samples with different volume fractions shows satisfactory agreement. This supports the capability of our proposed methodology to predict effective thermal conductivity of nanocomposites.