Liao Yu, Zhang Rui, Wang Hongxia, Ye Shuangli, Zhou Yihua, Ma Taolin, Zhu Junqing, Pfefferle Lisa D, Qian Jun
School of Printing and Packaging, Wuhan University Luojia Hill Wuhan 430072 China
Chemical & Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science, Yale University 17 Hillhouse Avenue New Haven CT 06511 USA.
RSC Adv. 2019 May 15;9(27):15184-15189. doi: 10.1039/c9ra01721f. eCollection 2019 May 14.
Carbon-based conductive inks are one of the most important materials in the field of printing electronics. However, most carbon-based conductive inks with small electrical resistance are expensive, such as graphene. It limits the commercial use of carbon inks in the fields of flexible electronics and printed electronics. Here, we propose a low-cost and environmentally friendly formula based on dihydroxyphenyl-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT-f-OH)/carbon black/graphite as conductive fillers and waterborne acrylic resins as binders for preparing highly conductive carbon-based aqueous inks (HCCA-inks). Our study showed that when the mass fraction of carbon black, graphite and MWNT-f-OH was 3.0%, 10.2% and 4.1%, respectively, on a thickness of 40 μm, optimal conductivity (sheet resistance up to 29 Ω sq) was achieved, and the printed HCCA-inks on a paper could withstand extremely high folding cycles (>2000 cycles) while the resistance value of the flexible circuit only increased by 11%. The carbon-based aqueous inks showed high electrical conductivity and excellent mechanical stability, which makes it possible for them to be used as flexible wearable electronics, electroluminescent (EL) devices and printed capacitive sensors.
碳基导电油墨是印刷电子领域最重要的材料之一。然而，大多数电阻小的碳基导电油墨价格昂贵，比如石墨烯。这限制了碳油墨在柔性电子和印刷电子领域的商业应用。在此，我们提出一种低成本且环保的配方，以二羟基苯基功能化多壁碳纳米管（MWNT-f-OH）/炭黑/石墨作为导电填料，水性丙烯酸树脂作为粘合剂，用于制备高导电碳基水性油墨（HCCA油墨）。我们的研究表明，当炭黑、石墨和MWNT-f-OH的质量分数分别为3.0%、10.2%和4.1%时，在40μm的厚度下可实现最佳导电性（方阻高达29Ω/sq），并且在纸张上印刷的HCCA油墨能够承受极高的折叠循环次数（>2000次循环），而柔性电路的电阻值仅增加11%。这种碳基水性油墨具有高导电性和出色的机械稳定性，这使其有可能用作柔性可穿戴电子产品、电致发光（EL）器件和印刷电容式传感器。
