One-step printing of electrically conductive inks on textiles is one of the simplest and most prospective methods to manufacture functional wearable electronics. However, the high surface roughness and porous structure as well as poor temperature endurance of most textiles have become the major challenges for the realization of printed electronic textiles (E-textiles). To solve these issues, the UV curable conductive ink with fast curing and low temperature characteristics was formulated to fabricate the flexible fabric-based conductive patterns using screen printing method. The specific focus was spent on investigating the effect of ink composition on curing speed, film forming ability, morphological characteristics and electrical properties of conductive patterns directly printed on fabric substrates. Firstly, we determined the necessity of defoamer for the formation of uniform and continuous printed textile-based patterns, and optimized the film forming ability of UV-curing ink by exploring the defoamer performance. Then, the ink curing speed was found heavily depending on the different types and contents of photoinitiators. Finally, the nano-silver loading showed critical influence to the screen-printability and the electrical properties of printed patterns. An ink formulation with 60 wt% nano-silver, 4 wt% photoinitiator (1173), and 0.2 wt% defoamer (BYK-555) showed satisfactory screen printability, and the conductive patterns with 1.0 mm width exhibited a remarkably low resistivity of 4.04 × 10−5 Ω cm. Moreover, the high performance of the conductive pattern screen-printed on four different fabrics by the formulated UV curable conductive ink further demonstrated its application potential. The results showed that uniformity and electrical properties of printed patterns were directly
related to the weaving method, texture characteristic, and roughness of the
textiles. We believe these results will provide basic guidance for the formulation design of conductive ink and facilitate the utility of textiles-based wearable electronics.
Nowadays, the chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is attracting significant attention owing to its immense potential in tracking. However, most of the chipless tags are fabricated on hard printed circuit boards, and the wearable fabric-based chipless tag is still in the research stage. In this paper, a symmetrical 3rd L-shaped multi-resonator wearable chipless RFID tag is designed and screen-printed onto fabric. In order to investigate the influence of the non-uniform conductive layer on the signal transmission at high frequency, the surface and cross-sectional topographies of the printed conductive film are analyzed and the frequency response characteristics are simulated and measured. The obtained results show that the common fabric can be used as the substrate to screen print the L-shaped multi-resonators of the chipless RFID tag, and the quality of the screen printed line, especially a narrow line, significantly affects the radio frequency performance. For the screen-printed 3rd L-shaped stub resonators, the relative frequency shift compared with the simulation results are 0.99%, 0.88% and 2.26%, respectively. Generally, the surface morphology of fabric and screen-printed precision are critical in improving the performance of L-shaped multi-resonators.
To reveal the engineering relationship among the electrical properties of embroidered conductive lines, the electrical properties and arrangements of conductive yarns, it is necessary to establish their equivalent resistance model. Embroidered conductive lines in textiles are usually fabricated by single-layer (conductive and nonconductive yarn used as upper and lower yarn) or double-layer embroidery technology (conductive yarns used as upper and lower yarn). Several researchers have proposed the simple resistance model for single-layer embroidered conductive line based on geometric structure of single conductive yarn in fabric. However, the double-layer conductive line has the contact resistance periodically interlaced by the upper and lower conductive yarns, and it made its equivalent circuit different from that of single-layer conductive line. In this work, a geometric model was built to describe the trace of conductive yarn in fabric, and in combination with Wheatstone Bridge theory, was applied to establish the equivalent resistance models of double-layer conductive lines with a certain width, consisted of various courses. First, the equivalent resistance model of double-layer conductive lines consisting of single course was proposed to calculate the contact resistance. Then, to obtain the electrical resistance of double-layer conductive lines with a certain width, the equivalent resistance model was extended from single course to multiple courses ([Formula: see text]). Finally, to validate the proposed equivalent resistance model, double-layer conductive lines with different embroidery parameters (stitch length and stitch spacing) on nonwoven fabric were fabricated and evaluated. The experimental results revealed that the proposed model accurately predicted the resistances of double-layer conductive lines.
Curing conditions have great influence on electrical properties of screen-printed ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) fabric tags. In this study, the surface morphology, resistance, and impedance of screen-printed antennas under various curing conditions were observed and measured. The results show that the antenna resistance first decreased and then increased from 20 °C to 145 °C. The least resistance per unit length was 0.38 ± 0.02 Ω/cm, and impedance matching was optimal at 120 °C and 0.5 h. These results provide guidance for the screen-printing of conductive inks on fabric.
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