Flexible heat protection for electronics
Zircotec's new lightweight flexible ceramic heat shield material offers a robust thermal protection solution for a wide range of electronic applications
Zircotec’s new lightweight flexible ceramic heat shield material can reduce surface temperatures by up to 64 percent, protecting key electronic components at risk of heat damage.
Zircotec believes its ZircoFlex™ product is the first ever flexible ceramic heat shield material. It is supplied in a roll, and could revolutionise the use of ceramic materials for heat protection in a wide range of electronic applications.
“ZircoFlex has the potential to transform the use of thermal management solutions,” comments Zircotec sales director Peter Whyman. “Since launching the product this summer, we have received multiple enquiries from electronics companies regarding its potential use in electronic applications where key components are at risk of heat damage. Due to its lightweight and flexible nature, ZircoFlex is ideally placed to offer efficient heat protection in a wide range of applications, including internal computer components such as motherboards, power transformers, power supply equipment and electronic parts such as semiconductors.”
Applied to the material surface in a lightweight layer, ZircoFlex can reduce surface temperatures by up 64 percent. It can be cut and installed by hand or machine, and is easily fixed in place using mechanical fasteners or high temperature adhesives, allowing it to be integrated directly into conventional production or maintenance operations.
Ceramic coatings are naturally brittle, which has limited their use up until now to rigid substrates. The new ZircoFlex product, which is the culmination of more than five years’ intensive research and materials science, uses a new technology in which the ceramic material is sprayed in the form of thousands of individual ‘platelets’ on the surface of the foil. While they are close-packed to provide comprehensive heat protection, this structure allows the foil to be bent and manipulated to suit different geometries, and it can even be folded tightly through 180o without damaging the thermal barrier.
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