Thermal Transport in Polymers

Dear Colleagues, 

Polymers continue to infiltrate modern devices thanks to their unparalleled combination of properties unavailable from any other known materials, including light weight, corrosion resistance, electrical insulation, and ease of processing. Polymers are expected to provide exceptional advantages over traditional heat conductors such as metals and ceramics. For example, thermally conductive polymers may replace metals as lightweight heat dissipators in cars. However, common polymers are thermal insulators with low thermal conductivities on the order of 0.1 W m^-1 K^-1. This could be due to disorders and defects in polymers that are scattering sites for heat carrier transport. However, engineered polymers could have high thermal conductivity due to the strong covalent bonds in polymer chains. Over the past few decades, efforts have been devoted to engineering polymers with metal-like thermal conductivity and understanding thermal transport mechanisms in polymers.

Turning thermally insulating polymers into thermal conductors is of technological importance and scientific interest. This Special Issue “Thermal Transport in Polymers” will stimulate a broad community (including polymer scientists and engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, materials scientists and engineers, and chemists, among others) to further investigate thermal transport mechanisms in polymers and develop thermally conductive polymers, which present a range of applications in next-generation devices and systems. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following: 

• Thermal transport theory for polymers.
• Simulation and modeling of thermal transport in polymers and interfaces.
• Developing polymer-based materials with high thermal conductivity.
• Understanding relationships between molecular characteristics and fundamental thermal transport properties of polymers
• Machine learning for predicting thermal transport properties of polymers.
• Polymers for emerging thermal management applications (e.g., personal thermal management, efficient passive daytime radiative cooling and beyond).

Prof. Dr. Yanfei Xu
Dr. Jiawei Zhou
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• polymers
• thermal transport mechanisms
• thermal conductors
• thermal insulators
• thermal conductivities
• thermal transport properties
• thermal management applications