Use of Nanocellulose to Produce Water-Based Conductive Inks with Ag NPs for Printed Electronics.

Sandra Martinez-Crespiera,Valerio Beni,Francisco Cecilia-Morillo,Rosa M González-Gil,Yuval Nevo,Enrico Tolin,Belén Pepió-Tàrrega,Achim Bahr,Javier Palmer,Sirio Beneitez-Álvarez,Tiffany Abitbol,Christian Aulin,Andreas Fall,Ana M Escobar

doi:10.3390/ijms23062946

Abstract

The need for more sustainable printed electronics has emerged in the past years. Due to this, the use of nanocellulose (NC) extracted from cellulose has recently been demonstrated to provide interesting materials such as functional inks and transparent flexible films due to its properties. Its high specific surface area together with the high content of reactive hydroxyl groups provide a highly tailorable surface chemistry with applications in ink formulations as a stabilizing, capping, binding and templating agent. Moreover, NC mechanical, physical and thermal properties (high strength, low porosity and high thermal stability, respectively) provide an excellent alternative for the currently used plastic films. In this work, we present a process for the production of water-based conductive inks that uses NC both as a template for silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) formation and as an ink additive for ink formulation. The new inks present an electrical conductivity up to 2 × 106 S/m, which is in the range of current commercially available conductive inks. Finally, the new Ag NP/NC-based conductive inks have been tested to fabricate NFC antennas by screen-printing onto NC-coated paper, demonstrating to be operative.

Highlights

Introduction iationsOver the past decade, printed electronics have become a promising field with highlighted developments over various applications [1]
In the case of Ag NPs, they are usually synthesized by reduction in an aqueous medium, and the most used reducing agents are sodium borohydride (NaBH4 ), hydrazine, ascorbic acid and sodium citrate
Ag NPs are directly synthesized on the NC surface by reduction of Ag+ ions

Summary

Introduction

Over the past decade, printed electronics have become a promising field with highlighted developments over various applications [1]. This emerging field combines the development of functional inks and their deposition by conventional printing processes to produce more cost-effective and eco-friendly electronic products. A wide range of low-cost printing processes can be applied, from conventional processes such as inkjet and screen-printing, to coating procedures such as slot-die, spin-coating, or sputtering techniques [2]. These processes ensure a good level of productivity, and together with the use of sustainable substrates and inks, represent a better alternative to currently used electronic devices.

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