Nano silver conductive inks for printed electronics

Jon Lawson

Clariant is opening up the sustainability and performance advantages of direct printing of high-conductivity electrical traces to new areas of the Electronics Manufacturing Industry through its customised nano silver conductive inks.

PRELECT TPS Nano Silver Conductive Inks for Ink- and Aerosol Jet application are water-based inks and feature functional Silver Nano particles with specifically developed dispersants and capping agents from Clariant’s own portfolio.

The inks, which offer excellent product performance, enable manufacturers to print highly-defined electric patterns directly onto any surface for a number of environmental and manufacturing efficiency benefits.

From an environmental standpoint, manufacturers can eliminate hazardous chemical metallization processes which use toxic chemicals and generate contaminated waste water. Productivity-wise, depending on the application, the direct printing of electrical traces in connection with additive manufacturing cuts down on the number of manufacturing steps compared to electroplating.

PRELECT TPS Nano Silver Conductive Inks are already proving their value on a range of specialised devices and very thin surface layers requiring high conductivity. For example, printed cell collection grids in photovoltaic, printed cell phone antennae, RFIP antennae, printed touch sensor interconnects and EMI shielding layers.