Have you ever noticed how your phone or laptop gets hot when you’re using it for a long time, or when you’re playing a high-graphic game?
That’s because as electronic devices get smaller and more powerful, they also generate a lot of heat.
This can make your devices run slower and sometimes even shut down unexpectedly to prevent damage.
But now, a group of researchers may have found a solution to this problem, according to a study published in ACS Applied Nano Materials.
Just as we use fans and air conditioning to cool down on a hot day, scientists have been looking for ways to keep our devices cool.
They’re using something called ‘nanocomposite materials,’ which are super tiny materials made up of different components. In this case, the components are a flexible polymer and a thermally conductive filler – basically, a material that’s good at carrying heat away.
Making these materials isn’t as easy as mixing up a cake batter, though. The researchers used a process called ‘electrospinning’ to create the nanocomposite.
Picture squirting two solutions out of syringes through an electrically charged nozzle. This creates tiny fibers that layer up to form a thin film.
The trick that Jinhong Yu, Sharorong Lu and their team used was to create two separate solutions – one with the polymer and another with the heat-conductive filler, which in this case was a material made of tiny diamonds.
By squirting these two solutions together, they created fibers that had a core of the polymer and a coating of the tiny diamonds.
Instead of the components being randomly scattered, they were arranged in a specific way.
Why does this matter?
Because this special arrangement of components lets the film act like a ‘heat highway,’ directing the heat along and across the fibers, away from your device. The result? Their new material was able to carry away heat four times more efficiently than similar materials.
The takeaway is this: In the future, we might have ‘heat highways’ in our phones, laptops, or other electronic devices to keep them from overheating.
So, even as our devices get smaller and more powerful, they could stay cool and keep running smoothly, thanks to these tiny, innovative materials.
Isn’t science awesome?
