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Application of Nano Inorganic Materials in Printing Ink

The printing industry is an important part of our country’s national economy, and vigorously developing printing technology is the current development trend of the international printing industry. The application of nano materials in ink, paper and printing machine can improve the performance of printing materials, the defects of printing materials, and bring new vitality to the development of printing industry.

 

Ink fineness is closely related to the quality of printed matter. The finer the ink is, the stronger the tinting strength, and the clearer and fuller the dots of the printed matter. Nano inks undoubtedly have special advantages in terms of fineness, because nanomaterials are the materials with the finest grains at present. The nanoparticles themselves have good surface wettability, they are adsorbed on the surface of the pigment particles in the ink, which significantly improves the lipophilicity and wettability of the ink, which can better improve the printing suitability of the ink. The so-called nano particles refer to metal-based particles, oxide particles thereof, and non-metallic-based particles. The composition and characteristics of the nanopowders are different, and the characteristics of the ink made are also different. Nano metal particles can absorb all light of various wavelengths, and they appear black, but have a scattering effect on light. Therefore, the ink added with metal nano powders has higher purity and density. This is a process effect that cannot be achieved by adding ordinary materials. This is the basic law of actual performance. Using novel technology to add nano particles in resins, pigments, fillers, etc. can also achieve the effect of reducing the amount of pigment without reducing the covering power of the ink. If it is added to the UV ink, it can also speed up its curing speed and effectively avoid the shrinkage and wrinkling of the ink film.

 

Adhesion of nano inks to substrates

Nano anti-counterfeiting ink, a researcher from Beijing University of Chemical Technology compounded a material mixed with nano zirconia (ZrO2) and rare earth elements in a conventional ink binder to prepare an ink for printing anti-counterfeiting labels. After the ink is printed on the substrate, the pattern appears in one color under visible light and another under infrared light, which can achieve anti-counterfeiting purposes. There is also a magnetic anti-counterfeiting ink, which is to add nano magnetic substances to the ink, and the pictures and texts printed with this ink can detect magnetic signals under a special detector.

 

Adding nano SiO2 and nano TiO2 to the ink, because these two substances have strong anti-ultraviolet and catalytic properties, the light fastness of the synthesized nano ink is improved by 2-3 grades, and the heat resistance and adhesion are improved to some extent.

 

Conductive ink is made by adding silver nano conductive powder into the ink. This ink can be printed on ceramics and metals, and can also be used for circuit layer printing of modern touch panel switches. It has good performance and smooth and uniform film.

 

Using the ink with addition of nano TiO2 for printing on the surface of metal, plastic and other substrates can produce visual flash effect, color transfer effect, additional color effect, etc., also can make the surface color of the printed matter change richly and play a decorative effect as nano TiO2 can continuously emit visible light and produce different visual effects.

 

There are also some specific nanoscale materials that can achieve some specific effects if added to the ink. Nano inorganic materials such as nano Al203 has good fluidity, and if added to the ink, the wear resistance can be greatly improved. When some substances are at the nano scale, the particle size is different so is the color. Thus the manufacture of color ink may no longer rely on chemical pigments, but select different nano size particles of appropriate volume to present different colors.

 

Times are advancing, and new demands will always require the market to provide new products. The emergence of nano-printing technology marks that our country has reached the international forefront in the field of printing, opened up a new way of green, environmentally friendly and efficient printing, and promoted the development of my country’s printing industry in the direction of “green, functional, three-dimensional, and device-based” and it will also spawn more strategic emerging industries.

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Conductive fillers (carbon nanotubes, silver powder, copper powder) and conductive inks

Conductive ink is a special conductive coating that has been developed rapidly with the emergence of modern printed electronic technology. Compared with electronic products manufactured by traditional conductive coatings, printed electronic products based on conductive inks are flexible, large-area, lot sizing, lightweight, low cost, and environmentally friendly, and the market prospects are broad. Carbon nanotubes have high conductivity and large aspect ratio. As a conductive filler, it is very easy to build a conductive path and an ideal conductive ink filler.

Conductive ink is a composite material composed of conductive fillers, resin binders, solvents, dispersion stabilizers and additives. Among them, conductive fillers are the key functional phase. According to the properties of conductive fillers, it can be divided into three categories: silver, copper, and carbon (carbon nanotubes, graphene).

The latest application of nano conductive ink:

1.Flexible transparent conductive film

Using nano silver conductive ink as the conductive raw material, latest manufacturing technology-nano imprinting technology to produce the flexible transparent conductive film to replace the traditional conductive film. The flexible transparent conductive film produced by this process has the following characteristics: the surface resistance and light transmittance of the film are adjustable, which is better than the ITO transparent conductive film; the patterned electrode can be realized at one time, the flexible substrate is used, and the roll-to-roll large area and batch can be realized. It can be manufactured at a low cost and achieve extremely high surface conductivity.

2.RFID antennas

As early as many years ago, some people began to study using nano conductive ink to print RFID antennas. Its biggest advantages are simple process, environmental protection, and low drying temperature (applicable to a variety of substrates). Commonly used RFID antennas are divided into high frequency and ultra high frequency. The high frequency antenna manufacturing process is relatively cumbersome, and the circuit needs to be bridged between the front and back; the UHF antenna only needs to be printed on the substrate once, and the chip can be obtained after drying, RFID tags. Therefore, the nano conductive ink printing UHF RFID antenna has more efficiency advantages.

3.Transistors

The benchmark for measuring the chip manufacturing process is the width of the connecting wires of the transistors in the chip, that is, the line width. The line width of a semiconductor chip is limited by the atomic size and has its physical limit. The chip volume cannot be infinitely small, and the frequency of power-on and power-off cannot be increased any more. Breaking through this bottleneck requires a thorough innovation in materials and technology. CNTs transistors can be used to replace silicon transistors. The performance of transistors made of CNTs is 3 to 5 times higher than that of traditional silicon transistors, and the production cost is low.

At present, some R&D institutions have begun to use carbon nanotubes conductive ink to print transistors. Use printing technology to make CNTs transistors on flexible substrates reach a practical level, and are used for RFID tags.

4.Paper battery

Paper batteries refer to ultra-thin batteries printed with conductive inks (mainly as electrodes) using paper or film substrates as carriers. The terminal products of paper batteries include active or semi-active RFID tags, tag sensors, smart cards, smart packaging, medical electronic drug stickers, etc..

Nano silver(Ag) conductive ink can also be applied to paper battery electrodes. Domestic manufacturers have also done this test, using nano silver conductive ink through inkjet printing to obtain electrodes on the PET film. After charging and discharging tests, it is found that it has better battery capacity and stable performance.

 

Conductive ink is an indispensable material for printed electronic devices, and is the key and core technology in the upstream of the printed electronics industry chain. It is believed that in the near future, large-scale flexible displays, environmentally friendly ultra-thin batteries, RFID tags, etc. will bring great convenience to people’s lives.

 

Hwnanomaterial is supplying conductive fillers for conductive inks in bulk, including silver, copper, silver-coated copper powder, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and so on. Welcome to contact us if you have any requirements!