document updated a day ago, on Mar 11, 2026
Searching for an additive to increase PCL's thermal conductivity (Unpolished)
Places to find candidate materials
My criteria
Informally, things I'm looking for are:
- thermal conductivity — high
- hardness — low (Brinell hardness < 150)
- alternately, the hardness can be high, as long as you can buy them for cheap in ball form
(because the plastic is hand-moldable, and I don't want the additive to really scratch the user's hands)
- toxicity — very low
- cost — low
- doesn't react with water
(this means iron is ruled out, because it becomes iron oxide, and so it loses its thermal conductivity)
On Matweb, try this specific query:
- Thermal conductivity: > 50 W*(m/K)
- Hardness, Brinell: < 200
Possible matches
Metals that are "silvery":
- aluminum [amazon] [elsewhere]
- stainless steel
- pro — you can buy them in ball form
- pro — not too expensive (in ball form)
- information — Thermal conductivity at 20°C — 25 W/m K
TODO: figure out its exact price-per-gram, and then figure out how that compares to competing alternatives
- silver [amazon]
- cons — expensive, with a spot-price of ~$600 / lb
- magnesium
- cons — very flammable if it can be ignited (which is hard to do), so it's not great to store a lot in one place
- tin [amazon] [elsewhere]
- pro — softer than most metals (Mohs 1.5), and thermal conductivity isn't terrible (67 W/(m⋅K))
- con — a little bit expensive
- silicon, elemental, powdered [amazon]
- con — high hardness (Mohs 6.5)
Other:
- graphite, powdered [amazon]
- pro — very high conductivity, comes in fine enough particles that it won't feel "gritty" to the hand
- cons — it can probably really stain fingers (
TODO: confirm this
)
- pro — cheap
- silicon carbide [amazon]
- pro — cheap
- pro — available in many particle sizes
- con — so hard that it's literally used as rock tumbler media
- copper [amazon] [elsewhere]
Disqualified:
- Iron — It reacts with water, forming iron oxide, which causes its thermal conductivity to plummet.
Possible stores
Reference
Calculate the mass of many spheres:
- definitions
- d — density of material
- n — number of spheres
- Vsingle = 4/3 π r³
- m = n · d · Vsingle = 4/3 · π · n · d · r³
Example calculation: