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

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Electronics Engineering

Background:

• Current conductive inks for printed electronics, often metal nanoparticle-based, face challenges with high cost and poor flexibility.
• There is a growing demand for conductive inks with high conductivity, flexibility, low cost, and substrate compatibility for advanced printed electronics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a highly conductive, low-cost, and super flexible conductive ink.
• To demonstrate the potential of this ink for printed electronics applications, specifically as current collectors in supercapacitors.

Main Methods:

• Screen printing of graphene nanoplatelet ink onto plastic and paper substrates.
• Post-printing treatments including thermal annealing and compression rolling.
• Fabrication and testing of supercapacitors utilizing the printed graphene patterns as current collectors.

Main Results:

• The printed graphene patterns achieved a high conductivity of 8.81 × 10^4 S m^-1.
• The printed patterns exhibited excellent flexibility, maintaining conductivity after 1000 bending cycles.
• Supercapacitors demonstrated good rate capability up to 200 mV s^-1 using graphene current collectors.

Conclusions:

• Graphene nanoplatelet ink offers a promising, cost-effective, and flexible alternative to traditional conductive inks.
• This technology facilitates the large-scale fabrication of flexible printed electronic devices.
• The developed graphene ink is suitable for high-performance energy storage applications like supercapacitors.