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. 2019 May 29;9(1):8035.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-44420-y.

All Inkjet-Printed Graphene-Silver Composite Ink on Textiles for Highly Conductive Wearable Electronics Applications

Nazmul Karim  1 , Shaila Afroj  2   3 , Sirui Tan  4 , Kostya S Novoselov  2   3 , Stephen G Yeates  5
Affiliations

All Inkjet-Printed Graphene-Silver Composite Ink on Textiles for Highly Conductive Wearable Electronics Applications

Nazmul Karim et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Inkjet-printed wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles) are considered to be very promising due to excellent processing and environmental benefits offered by digital fabrication technique. Inkjet-printing of conductive metallic inks such as silver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) are well-established and that of graphene-based inks is of great interest due to multi-functional properties of graphene. However, poor ink stability at higher graphene concentration and the cost associated with the higher Ag loading in metal inks have limited their wider use. Moreover, graphene-based e-textiles reported so far are mainly based on graphene derivatives such as graphene oxide (GO) or reduced graphene oxide (rGO), which suffers from poor electrical conductivity. Here we report inkjet printing of highly conductive and cost-effective graphene-Ag composite ink for wearable e-textiles applications. The composite inks were formulated, characterised and inkjet-printed onto PEL paper first and then sintered at 150 °C for 1 hr. The sheet resistance of the printed patterns is found to be in the range of ~0.08-4.74 Ω/sq depending on the number of print layers and the graphene-Ag ratio in the formulation. The optimised composite ink was then successfully printed onto surface pre-treated (by inkjet printing) cotton fabrics in order to produce all-inkjet-printed highly conductive and cost-effective electronic textiles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sheet resistances of the conductive films drawn on a glass substrate with SA-Ag/BS8 composites using a cube film applicator.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) The change of sheet resistance of inkjet-printed SA-Ag with number of layers; (b) Effect of SA-Ag/BS8 (vol.-%) ratio and the number of layers on the sheet resistances of the inkjet-printed conductive patterns; (c) Effect of annealing temperature and time on the sheet resistance of inkjet-printed conductive patterns printed with composite Ink C; and (d) TGA diagrams of SA-Ag, BS8 and composite Ink C (SA-Ag/BS8).
Figure 3
Figure 3
SEM images of inkjet-printed composite Ink C onto PEL paper (a) 1 L at 2000X; (b) 1 L at 10000X; (c) 5 L at 2000X and (d) 5 L at 10000X.
Figure 4
Figure 4
SEM images of inkjet-printed composite Ink C (6 L) onto untreated (top: a,b) and NP1 (12 L) printed (below: c,d) 100% cotton fabrics.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Electrical resistance variation of graphene-silver composite ink printed wearable e-textiles: (a) under cyclic bending for 1000 times; (b) for 10 folding−releasing cycles; (c) with the upward and downward movements of printed e-textiles mounted on a wrist joint; (d) expanded version of purple box in (c) from 65 s to 79 s.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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