Conductivity is the property of what is conductive (that is, it has the ability to conduct). It is a physical property that those objects capable of transmitting electricity or heat have.
According to abbreviationfinder.org, the electrical conductivity, therefore, is the ability of the body to allow the passage of current through themselves. This natural property is linked to the ease with which electrons can pass through them and is the inverse of resistivity.
It is important to differentiate between conductivity and conductance (the ability of a body to conduct current between different points). Conductance is the property of resistance.
In liquids, conductivity is linked to the existence of salts in the solution stage since, with their dissociation, negative and positive ions are produced that can transfer electrical energy when the liquid is subjected to an electric field. These ionic conductors are called electrolytes.
In the case of solids, materials with conductivity capacity are those that have valence bands that overlap with conduction and create a cloud of free electrons that generate current when subjected to the electric field.
The thermal conductivity, finally, is the property of bodies capable of conducting heat. The process involves the transfer of kinetic energy from molecule to molecule. The inverse property of thermal conductivity is called thermal resistance (the ability of a material to generate opposition to heat transport).
When it comes to assembling a computer or replacing any of its components, one of the most ignored and misunderstood elements is the so-called paste, silicone or thermal grease, among other names that it usually receives in the market. It is a material that helps to increase the level of thermal conductivity that takes place between two or more surfaces that, for different reasons, cannot join completely. One of the causes of the lack of contact may be the irregularity of one of the parts.
The objective of the thermal paste is that the heat passes from one component, which can be the CPU (Central Processing Unit), to another, such as a fan (also called a cooler), whose function is to expel it to collaborate with the cooling of the team. During its application, it is important not to use an excessive amount of fat; If this occurs, care should be taken to clean up the excess to avoid obtaining the opposite results to those sought in the first place.
To express the extent to which each of the different substances is capable of conducting heat, the so-called coefficient of thermal conductivity is used, which is considered among the properties of the first. It is represented by the letter “lambda” of the Greek alphabet. The information it provides refers to the amount of heat that the material in question passes through when the temperature of any of its faces varies, provided that it is in place and in an unaltered state, among a series of specific requirements that must be complied with.
The need for such strict requirements is that the coefficient of thermal conductivity changes according to the state in which a substance is found and the factors that contribute to this variation are many and very different for each type of material. Its compliance ensures the obtaining of a result consistent with those obtained between the different research centers; It should be noted that it is not an absolute value, such as a distance or a height, which is why setting parameters for the measurement is so important.
