  This paper is concerned with the interfacial thermal resistance for polymer
composites reinforced by various covalently functionalised graphene. By using
molecular dynamics simulations, the obtained results show that the covalent
functionalisation in graphene plays a significant role in reducing the
graphene-paraffin interfacial thermal resistance. This reduction is dependent
on the coverage and type of functional groups. Among the various functional
groups, butyl is found to be the most effective in reducing the interfacial
thermal resistance, followed by methyl, phenyl and formyl. The other functional
groups under consideration such as carboxyl, hydroxyl and amines are found to
produce negligible reduction in the interfacial thermal resistance. For
multilayer graphene with a layer number up to four, the interfacial thermal
resistance is insensitive to the layer number. The effects of the different
functional groups and the layer number on the interfacial thermal resistance
are also elaborated using the vibrational density of states of the graphene and
the paraffin matrix. The present findings provide useful guidelines in the
application of functionalised graphene for practical thermal management.

Materials Science