Screen-Printing of a Highly Conductive Graphene Ink for Flexible Printed Electronics

Abstract

Conductive inks for the future printed electronics should have the following merits: high conductivity, flexibility, low cost, and compatibility with wide range of substrates. However, the state-of-the-art conductive inks based on metal nanoparticles are high in cost and poor in flexibility. Herein, we reported a highly conductive, low cost, and super flexible ink based on graphene nanoplatelets. The graphene ink has been screen-printed on plastic and paper substrates. Combined with postprinting treatments including thermal annealing and compression rolling, the printed graphene pattern shows a high conductivity of 8.81 × 104 S m–1 and good flexibility without significant conductivity loss after 1000 bending cycles. We further demonstrate that the printed highly conductive graphene patterns can act as current collectors for supercapacitors. The supercapacitor with the printed graphene pattern as the current collector and printed activated carbon as the active material shows a good rate capability of up to 200 mV s–1. This work potentially provides a promising route toward the large-scale fabrication of low cost yet flexible printed electronic devices.

Fabrication and Performance of Self-Supported Flexible Cellulose Nanofibrils/Reduced Graphene Oxide Supercapacitor Electrode Materials

“…After undergoing 2000 cycles, the initial retention rate of the specific capacitance is about 83.7%, which displays good cycling stability for the CNFs/RGO 12 film. In addition, as a flexible conductive material, the effect of number of bends on capacitance was investigated by bending the CNFs/RGO12 film 200 times with a constant bending radius of 4 mm [ 60 ], and the measured results indicate that its capacitance did not change much, which is shown in Figure 7 f.…”

Plasmas for additive manufacturing

“…[ 115 ] For inkjet printing and screen‐printing, graphene, graphene‐like materials (i.e., rGO) and CNT are typically dispersed in a solvent that, much like metal nanoparticle‐based inks, require an organic binder or stabilizing agent to prevent agglomeration. [ 116 ] The organics must be removed after printing to restore the conductivity, typically by thermal annealing. [ 117 ] In a recent study, researchers investigated an alternative to thermal annealing by treating screen‐printed rGO ink using an atmospheric pressure N 2 plasma.…”

Multifunctional coatings of exfoliated and reassembled graphite on cellulosic substrates

“…Components Capacitance mF cm -2 Ni3V2O8@PANI 30 585 Annealed carbon cloth 31 2,900 Ni(OH)2/C/Cu // Mn3O4/C/Cu 32 216 ERG on paper (this work) 350 Activated carbon (AC) on polyimide film 33 35 Graphene/AC on polyimide film 19 37 Graphene on polyimide film 19 8 MnCo2O4 hollow spheres on carbon fibres 34 800 P3MT/HACNT on PDMS 35 3,100 HACNT on PDMS 21 750 Buckypaper on PDMS 21 250 Graphene-graphite/PU 36 16 Please do not adjust margins Please do not adjust margins For instance, any square coating with this resistance dissipates 1.3 watt only, under a 15 A current. If the voltage fed to the circuit is 120 V, the power dissipated in the coating square is less than 0.1%.…”