Heat capacity (Cp) of the MWCNT/PDMS nanocomposite

Similarly to Cp, an increase can be observed in thermal diffusivity (Fig.1b) and thermal conductivity , with an increase in the amount of carbon nanotubes in the polymer matrix. Both characteristics can be fitted using linear functions, suggesting stable changes in the tested temperature region. A downward trend in thermal diffusivity can be observed, with a maximum value of 0.9, 0.109 ad 0.131 mm2/s for pure PDMS, PDMS with 1 wt.% and 2 wt.% of MWCNTs, respectively.Table 1 presents thermal conductivity values of various thermoelectric materials reported in the literature. The data presented in Tab. 1 show MWCNTs have high thermal conductivity, two orders of magnitude higher than of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and one order of magnitude higher than that of bismuth and antimony tellurides. It should be noted that coating of SWCNT with a polymer, as described by Nonoguchi et al. [19], preserves the low thermal conductivity of the hybrid structure.