Rapid Prototyping of Slot Die Devices for Roll to Roll Production of EL Fibers

Abstract

There is a growing interest in fibers supporting optoelectrical properties for textile and wearable display applications. Solution-processed electroluminescent (EL) material systems can be continuously deposited onto fiber or yarn substrates in a roll-to-roll process, making it easy to scale manufacturing. It is important to have precise control over layer deposition to achieve uniform and reliable light emission from these EL fibers. Slot-die coating offers this control and increases the rate of EL fiber production. Here, we report a highly adaptable, cost-effective 3D printing model for developing slot dies used in automatic coating systems. The resulting slot-die coating system enables rapid, reliable production of alternating current powder-based EL (ACPEL) fibers and can be adapted for many material systems. The benefits of this system over dip-coating for roll-to-roll production of EL fibers are demonstrated in this work.

Effect of Fabric Integration on the Physical and Optical Performance of Electroluminescent Fibers for Lighted Textile Applications

“…The illuminated fiber in Figure 3b had non-uniform emission due to an uneven dispersion of supporting conductive fibers. The thicknesses of the layers has been reported in previous work [29]. Although the total thickness of the isolation layer was consistent across, the parts of the fiber that appear dark had an isolation layer thickness between the emissive layer and conductive fibers of the supporting yarn greater than 50 µm.…”

“…Slot die devices, like that shown in Figure 2, with varying cylindrical die openings were used to control the deposition of each layer onto the previous layer of the device structure. These devices were described in detail in previous work [29]. The fibers were cured inside an oven to evaporate the solvent from the fluid coating material after deposition.…”

Slot-Die Coated Active Carbon Films for Hydrogen Storage Applications

“…Nicely uniform films with an average thickness of ≈ 3.5 µm were obtained, thereby proving the validity of the operating envelope determined by the simulations. An error of ≈ 10% is acceptable between numerical and actual values [11,12]. Good particle integrity is observed, and particles are flocked together into agglomerates penetrating into each other.…”

“…The details of the roll-to-roll continuous slot-die manufacturing process can be found elsewhere [11,12]. Simplified two-dimensional (2D) simulations of the process were carried out to obtain the most suitable coating parameters as to achieve films with thickness of 3-8 µm.…”

Carbon fiber doped thermosetting elastomer for flexible sensors: physical properties and microfabrication

“…The range of different spatial formats of CMs can facilitate new MEMS devices with innovative geometries, which are not possible from traditional substrates such as metals, silicon, and glass. Among the CMs, carbon fiber (CF) 11–13 is a very attractive substrate for electrical signal transduction in miniaturized electrochemical sensors due to the unique advantageous features such as the small dimensions (5–30 μm), low capacitive current, thermal stability, superior mechanical strength, light weight with a specific strength (strength/density) that can be produced from a roll-to-roll process 14 . All these merits are advantageous when CF serves as the substrate in the fabrication of sensors such as strain 15 , pressure 16 , chemical 17,18 , as well as optical and humidity 19 , and MEMS for harvesting energy devices and MEMS scanning micromirror arrays 20 .…”