Jansson Elina, Lyytikäinen Johanna, Tanninen Panu, Eiroma Kim, Leminen Ville, Immonen Kirsi, Hakola Liisa
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Sensing Solutions, Kaitovayla 1, FI-90590 Oulu, Finland.
Laboratory of Production Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Energy Systems, LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, FI-53850 Lappeenranta, Finland.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Jan 26;15(3):957. doi: 10.3390/ma15030957.
Flexible plastic substrates are widely used in printed electronics; however, they cause major climate impacts and pose sustainability challenges. In recent years, paper-based electronics has been studied to increase the recyclability and sustainability of printed electronics. The aim of this paper is to analyze the printability and performance of metal conductor layers on different paper-based substrates using both flexography and screen printing and to compare the achieved performance with that of plastic foils. In addition, the re-pulpability potential of the used paper-based substrates is evaluated. As compared to the common polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, the layer conductivity on paper-based substrates was found to be improved with both the printing methods without having a large influence on the detail rendering. This means that a certain surface roughness and porosity is needed for the improved ink transfer and optimum ink behavior on the surface of the substrate. In the case of uncoated paper-based substrates, the conductivity and print quality decreased by preventing the formation of the proper and intimate ink-substrate contact during the ink transfer. Finally, the re-pulpability trials together with layer quality analysis detected very good, coated substrate candidates for paper-based printed electronics competing with or even outperforming the print quality on the reference PET foil.
柔性塑料基板在印刷电子领域被广泛应用；然而，它们会对气候产生重大影响并带来可持续性挑战。近年来，纸质电子器件已得到研究，以提高印刷电子器件的可回收性和可持续性。本文旨在通过苯胺印刷和丝网印刷分析不同纸质基板上金属导体层的可印刷性和性能，并将所取得的性能与塑料箔的性能进行比较。此外，还评估了所用纸质基板的再制浆潜力。与常见的聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯（PET）基板相比，发现采用这两种印刷方法时，纸质基板上的层电导率均有所提高，且对细节呈现没有太大影响。这意味着，为了改善油墨转移以及使油墨在基板表面具有最佳性能，需要一定的表面粗糙度和孔隙率。对于未涂布的纸质基板，在油墨转移过程中，由于无法形成适当且紧密的油墨 - 基板接触，电导率和印刷质量会下降。最后，再制浆试验以及层质量分析检测出了非常好的、可用于纸质印刷电子器件的涂布基板候选材料，其印刷质量与参考PET箔相当，甚至更优。
