The primary purpose of this study was to prepare a new type of silver-coated hollow glass microspheres and to make available this facility for the fabrication of thermally conductive polymeric composites based on ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer. Thermally conducting composites could be produced with a silver coating around the hollow glass microspheres, despite the discussed and compared to various theoretical models. The thermal diffusivity and the specific heat of the composites were also characterized and are reported. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 122: 685-697, 2011