According to reports, researchers from Rice University have found that boron nitride could help cool gadgets and devices by dealing with heat flows within them. Their findings have been published in the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Navid Sakhavand and Rouzbeh Shahsavari explained their first hypothetical analysis regarding use of a 3D structure of boron nitride in order to control heat flow and keep devices cool for longer time. Hexagonal boron nitride, which is known as white graphene, resembles graphene, which is carbon in atom-thick form, in 2D arrangement. But graphene is a good conductor and white graphene is a good insulator.

White graphene is a good conductor of heat and its capacity can be quantified on the basis of quasiparticles, phonons, or a portion of a combined excitation of atoms. This made the researchers thoroughly observe the material so as to control heat flow.

Shahsavari said that it is important to remove heat from almost all electronics that too as rapidly and efficiently as possible. According to Shahsavari, "One of the drawbacks in electronics, especially when you have layered materials on a substrate, is that heat moves very quickly in one direction, along a conductive plane, but not so good from layer to layer”. He added that multiple stacked graphene layer is an example of this.

Shahsavari said that this kind of 3D thermal-management system can lead to opportunities for thermal rectifiers or thermal switches. When it comes to appearance, white graphene resembles conventional graphene.