STTR Phase I: High yield production of boron nitride nanotubes for advanced heat management in sustainable technologies

这个小型企业技术转移(STTR)第一阶段项目的重点是生长高质量的氮化硼纳米管(BNNTs)。BNNTs不仅具有比铝高一个数量级的高热导，而且还具有约6 eV的电子带隙，这使它们成为一种优秀的电绝缘体。这些独特的特性有望实现许多令人兴奋的应用。不幸的是，众所周知，BNNTs很难种植，这意味着它们无法生产出满足工业需求所需的数量。该项目的目标是进一步推进最近开发的高质量BNNTs的生长技术。如果成功，这将使BNNT的生长速度比标准的化学气相沉积生长方法提高1000倍。此外，生长出的BNNTs将被用来制造复合材料，这种复合材料将被测试为电子系统热管理中的导热材料。这一项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力源于高质量BNNTs增长率的成功提高。电子系统的热管理是该行业面临的最紧迫的挑战之一。大多数电子系统使用塑料材料作为安装材料和包装来电气隔离电子元件。然而，这些材料会造成热瓶颈，需要昂贵的解决办法和庞大的冷却系统。为此，大量的工业研究都集中在解决这些热管理挑战上。当BNNTs的生长速度成功放大，并建立了BNNT复合材料的可行性时，它将允许大规模生产导热、电绝缘的塑料复合材料。这些材料可用于从电动发动机控制器到高效发光二极管单元的一切领域，以减轻电子系统中的热量积累。BNNT复合材料的广泛使用将降低电子元件故障率，减少对庞大冷却系统的需求等。此外，这些复合材料将为新的创新打开大门，例如三维电子系统架构。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project focuses on the growth of high quality Boron Nitride Nanotubes (BNNTs). BNNTs have both high thermal conductance that is an order of magnitude higher than aluminum, and also have an electronic bandgap of about 6 eV that makes them an excellent electrical insulator. These unique properties promise many exciting applications. Unfortunately, BNNTs are notoriously difficult to grow, which means that they cannot be produced in the quantities necessary to fulfill industrial needs. The objective of this project is to further advance a recently developed growth technique for high quality BNNTs. If successful, this will allow for a thousand-fold increase in the BNNT growth rate over the standard chemical vapor deposition growth methodology. Furthermore, the grown BNNTs will be used to create composite materials, which will be tested for use as thermally conductive materials in thermal management of electronic systems. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project stems from the successful increase in the growth rate of high quality BNNTs. Heat management of electronic systems is one of the most pressing challenges facing the industry. Most electronics systems use plastic materials both as mounting material and as packaging to electrically isolate the electronic components. However, these materials cause heat bottlenecks that require expensive workarounds and bulky cooling systems. For this reason, a large amount of industrial research is focused on solving these heat management challenges. When the growth rate of BNNTs has been successfully scaled up, and the feasibility of the BNNT composites are established, it will allow for wide scale production of thermally conductive, electrically insulating plastic composite materials. These materials can be used in everything from electric engine controllers to high-efficiency light emitting diode units to alleviate the buildup of heat in electronic systems. Widespread use of BNNT composites will allow for decreased electronic component failure rates, decreased need for bulky cooling systems, etc. In addition, these composites will open up the door for new innovations, such as three-dimensional electronic system architectures.