Realization of Circuits with Additively Printed Water Based Nanoparticle Sustainable Silver-Ink with Ultrasonic Atomization on Aerosol Jet Printer

Additive methods are preferred over processes that need hard-tooling due to ramp-up speed and soft tooling. Increasing demand for the miniaturization of electronics has accelerated the development of flexible electronics technology. Flexible electronic architectures have gained traction in products for various end applications. The prior generation of additive processes used volatile organic solvent-based inks to fabricate printed circuits. Increased emphasis on environmental, social, and governmental factors has called attention to the development of sustainable products. In this paper, the performance of sustainable water-based solvent inks has been studied and compared with the performance of volatile solvent inks. The Aerosol Jet printer was used in this work to print and develop a process parameters investigation, including ultrasonic atomizer mass flow rate, sheath flow control, and stage speed with a water base sustainable silver ink. Tests for electrical and mechanical properties, including resistance per unit length, shear load to failure and resistivity were carried out at various sintering temperatures and times. The results show that the electrical and mechanical properties are improved by varying these parameters, and optical methods and whitelight interferometry have also been used to characterize the results of the printed trace.