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Updated: Jun 24, 2025
Planar and Three-Dimensional Printing of Conductive Inks
Published on: December 9, 2011
Mechanically Robust, Inkjet-Printable Polymer Nanocomposites with Hybrid Gold Nanoparticles and Metal-like
Michael A H Klos1,2, Lola González-García1,3, Tobias Kraus1,2
1INM─Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Campus D2 2, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany.
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Hybrid core-shell nanoparticles with metal cores and conductive polymer shells yield materials that are sinter-free and highly conductive but mechanically weak. Conventional composites of such nanoparticles are electrically insulating. Here, we introduce microscale phase-separated nanocomposites of hybrid gold-PEDOT:PPS particles in insulating poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA). They combine electrical conductivities of up to 2.1 × 105 S/m at 10 vol % PVA with increased mechanical adhesion on polyethylene terephthalate and glass substrates. We studied the effects of the PVA molecular weight, hydrolyzation degree, and volume fraction. Composites with 10 vol % highly hydrolyzed PVA at a MW of 89-98 kDa had the highest conductivities and stabilities; highly hydrolyzed PVA even increased the conductivity of the hybrid particle layers. We propose the formation of hydrogen bonds between PVA and PEDOT:PSS that lead to demixing and the formation of stable, structured composites. Finally, we demonstrated the inkjet-printability of inks containing PVA in water with viscosities of 1.6-2.0 Pa s at 50.1 s-1 and prepared bending-resistant electrical leads.
