<p><strong>Thermal conductivity</strong> is how well a plastic conducts heat. Most plastics don't conduct heat very well at all, which is what allows them to be 3D printed. That being said, there are a lot of potential use cases for highly thermally conductive filament, assuming you could print them. A commonly discussed one is computer heatsinks. Similar heatsinks could also be used for stepper motors and extruders in 3d printing. </p>

<p>To get a good picture which plastics are useful in such an application (like mentioned in question: "<a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/10881/water-cooling-stepper-motor-with-aluminum-block">Water-cooling stepper motor with aluminum block</a>"), I need to know what is the thermal conductivity of the commonly used thermoplastics.</p>

[{'answer_id': 11044, 'author': 'K Mmmm', 'author_id': 10369, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/10369', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>All values are in W/(m*K).</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>PLA: 0.13</li>\n<li>HIPS: 0.20</li>\n<li>ABS: 0.25</li>\n<li>PETG: 0.29</li>\n<li>PEEK: 0.25</li>\n<li>PLA with copper: 0.25 (<a href="https://www.3dhubs.com/talk/t/thermal-conductivity-of-copper-based-filament-and-ceramic-resin/8798/7" rel="nofollow noreferrer">see discussion</a>) </li>\n<li>PETG with 40% graphite: 1.70 (ansiotropic)</li>\n<li><a href="https://tcpoly.com/products/filaments/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TCPoly</a>: 15</li>\n<li>Steel (not a 3dprintable plastic): 10 - 50</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YOsQZ.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YOsQZ.png" alt="enter image description here"></a>\n<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DmOFV.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DmOFV.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 11456, 'author': 'Jon', 'author_id': 19293, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/19293', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Trimet3d has a Nano diamond PLA with a claimed thermal conductivity 3-5 times that of PLA. The diamonds are sub-microscopic and smooth. See <a href="https://www.tiamet3d.com/product-page/ultra-diamond-pla-1kg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.tiamet3d.com/product-page/ultra-diamond-pla-1kg</a>\nPrimarily they seem to be doing it to gain strength.</p>\n\n<p>I would prefer larger diamonds for higher thermal conductivity. It would be ferociously abrasive even for a diamond nozzle.  It would also limit the thermal expansion.</p>\n'}]
['https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/11043', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/10369/']