Characteristics and Differences of Thermal Conductive Silicone Grease and Thermal Conductive Silicone

Many users only pay attention to radiators and fans when purchasing heat dissipation materials, but often ignore a very important thing-heat dissipation silicone grease, which is often confused with silica gel. Although silicone grease and silica gel are only two words apart in literal terms and are both heat conducting materials, their characteristics are quite different. In case of improper use, the consequences will be very serious. Silicone grease is used for lubrication and can be applied under high load. Its appearance is similar to that of big butter. Generally, we have less contact. And what we usually call thermally conductive silicone grease should be called silicone paste, which consists of silicone oil+filler. The filler is finely ground powder, and its composition is ZnO/Al2O3/ boron nitride/silicon carbide/aluminum powder, etc. Silicone oil ensures certain fluidity, while filler fills the tiny gap between CPU and radiator to ensure thermal conductivity. However, silicone oil has low sensitivity to temperature, does not thicken at low temperature, does not dilute at high temperature, and does not volatilize, so it can be used for a relatively long time. At present, some high-grade thermal conductive silicone grease uses silver powder or aluminum powder as filler, which takes advantage of the high thermal conductivity of metal. What we usually need to buy is thermally conductive silicone grease.