Conductive inkIt is a special conductive coating that has rapidly developed with the emergence of modern printed electronic technology. Compared with electronic products manufactured by traditional conductive coatings, printed electronic products based on conductive ink have the advantages of flexibility, large area, batch production, lightweight, low cost, and green environmental protection, and have broad market prospects. Carbon nanotubes have high conductivity and a large aspect ratio, making them an ideal conductive ink filler for building conductive pathways.
Graphene conductive ink is a composite material composed of conductive fillers, resin binders, solvents, dispersion stabilizers, and additives, with conductive fillers being the key functional phase. According to the properties of conductive fillers, they can be divided into three categories: silver based, copper based, and carbon based (carbon nanotubes, graphene).
Latest applications of nano conductive ink:
1.
Flexible transparent conductive film
The flexible transparent conductive film made using nano silver conductive carbon ink as the conductive raw material and the latest manufacturing technology - nano imprinting technology has been successfully developed, replacing traditional conductive films. The flexible transparent conductive film produced by this process has the following characteristics: the surface resistance and transmittance of the film can be adjusted, which is superior to ITO transparent conductive film; It can achieve patterned electrodes at once, using flexible substrates, and can achieve roll to roll large-area, batch production, and low-cost manufacturing; Can achieve extremely high surface conductivity.
2. RFID antenna
As early as many years ago, people began researching the use of nano conductive ink to print RFID antennas, which has the biggest advantages of simple process, environmental protection, and low drying temperature (suitable for various substrates). The commonly used RFID antennas are divided into two types: high-frequency and ultra-high frequency. The manufacturing process of high-frequency antennas is relatively complicated, and the circuit needs to be bridged in both directions; The ultra-high frequency antenna only needs to be printed once on the substrate, and after drying, the packaged chip can obtain the RFID tag. Therefore, printing ultra-high frequency RFID antennas with nano conductive ink has more efficiency advantages.
3. Transistor
The benchmark for measuring the chip manufacturing process is the width of the connecting wires of the transistors inside the chip, that is, the line width. The linewidth of semiconductor chips is limited by the atomic size and has its physical limit. The chip volume cannot be infinitely small, and the frequency of power on and off cannot be further increased. Breaking through this bottleneck requires a thorough innovation in materials and technology, and CNTs transistors can be used to replace silicon transistors. Transistors made of CNTs have performance 3-5 times higher than traditional silicon transistors, and have lower production costs.
Currently, some research and development institutions have started using carbon nanotube conductive ink to print transistors. Researchers added 10mg/L of 95% semiconductor CNTs and 100uL/L of ethylene glycol to water to create inkjet ink, which printed patterns with a line width of 70um. Using printing technology to achieve practical level of CNTs transistors on flexible substrates, for applications such as RFID tags.
4. Paper batteries
Paper batteries refer to ultra-thin batteries printed using conductive ink (mainly as electrodes) on paper or film substrates as carriers. The terminal products of paper batteries include active or semi-active RFID tags, tag sensors, smart cards, smart packaging, medical electronic drug stickers, etc.
Nano silver conductive ink can also be applied to paper battery electrodes. Some domestic manufacturers have also conducted this experiment, using nano silver conductive ink for inkjet printing to obtain electrodes on PET film. After charging and discharging tests, it was found that it has good battery capacity and stable performance.
Conductive ink is an essential material for printing electronic devices and a key and core technology in the upstream of the printing electronic industry chain. I believe that in the near future, large-scale flexible displays, environmentally friendly ultra-thin batteries, RFID tags, and other technologies will bring great convenience to people's lives.
Silver nanowires with a diameter of 20-25nm and a length of 20-25um are mixed with deionized water, ethanol, and other solvents to form nano conductive ink. The ink is then transferred onto glass or flexible PET substrates through coating processes such as Slot die and micro graphene to form highly transparent conductive glass or film (transparency>91%, surface resistance<100 Ω), which has significant advantages in flexible and medium to large-sized touch fields.
| colour |
light gray |
| Surface Resistivity |
70/100Ω |
| transmittance |
≥91% |
| Haze ratio |
≤1.0% |
| Viscosity |
2-50CPS |
| Usually used in conjunction with dispersed liquids |
(1) As a substitute material for ITO, it can be applied to solar energy OLED、 Fields such as flexible and large-sized touch displays;
(2) Applied in the field of conductive polymers and composite materials;
(3) Electrode printing ink additive.
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