THERMALLY CONDUCTIVE | MATERIALS
Taking the heat away
Progress in the field of materials for heat management include design and simulation packages and developments based on polycarbonate, PEEK and ceramic-filled compounds
Global megatrends such as electrification, minia- turisation and sustainable design have placed an emphasis on development of thermally conductive plastics with improved performance. Polymeric materials have been overshadowed by metals in heat management, but thanks to breakthroughs in thermal performance and processability, new thermal compounds are making their way into more applications. At the leading tech event CES 2025, which took place in Las Vegas, US, in January,Covestro unveiled a digital design and simulation suite tailored for its Makrolon TC thermally conductive polycarbonate family, enabling engineers to seamlessly design
heat-managing parts. Coupled with new grades targeting applications like LED luminaires and battery modules, these offerings can halve the weight compared to aluminium alternatives and
maintain flame-retardant and dimensional stability. Covestro said high-fidelity simulation will
improve the accuracy of predicting the thermal performance of injection moulded heatsinks made using its Makrolon TC product line. Using micromechanics, the new ability to account for the directional, or anisotropic, thermal conductiv- ity from fibre filler particle orientations in a moulded heatsink increases the accuracy in the downstream heat transfer simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), said Covestro. The company has also developed the Makrolon TC Heatsink Screener, a web-based tool based using
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artificial intelligence to give customers the ability to virtually test their own heatsink designs using various Makrolon TC polycarbonates and compare them with traditional metal materials, namely die-cast aluminium. The Heatsink Screener tool also offers optimised design configurations that balance heat management with weight and cost advantages. Eric Saks, Industrial Marketing for Electronics at
Covestro, said: “These digital developments are great examples of our commitment to our custom- ers to be innovators of more sustainable polycar- bonate-based solutions, not only in mobility, but across many markets – such as electronics – where heatsinks are used in a broad range of applications.” In applications such as Wi-Fi routers, Makrolon
TC PC materials combine the benefits of good thermal conductivity with stable radio frequency transmission, avoiding signal shielding, and making it easier to integrate an antenna into any router, wireless device or household appliance. In LED applications, the PC materials act effectively as a heat sink, but are lighter than aluminium and offer designers opportunities to reduce component complexity and assembly cost. Karen Guzman, Industrial Marketing for Mobility
at Covestro, said the company also sees potential in automotive lighting due to “significant weight and cost saving opportunities enabled by Makro- lon TC”. This market potential adds to the use of Makrolon TC in various other E-mobility applica- tions. For example, in electric vehicle (EV) batteries
September 2025 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 49
Main image: Xeramic Core compound from Xenia Materials combines carbon fibre with ceramic reinforcement
IMAGE: XENIA
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