Resistance variation of conductive ink applied by the screen printing technique on different substrates

Abstract

This research study focuses on the application of conductive ink by the screen printing technique to evaluate the potential of creating printed electrodes and to investigate the effect of washing upon electrical resistance and flexibility. Two conductive inks were applied by a conventional screen printing method on four different textile substrates, 100% cotton, 50%/50% cotton/polyester, 100% polyester and 100% polyamide. The inks were also applied on a multifibre fabric. Atmospheric plasma treatment was applied to improve the adhesion to the samples, and the resistance values were compared with those of non‐treated samples. The values were measured before and after cleaning and washing tests, which were performed to simulate domestic treatment for garments to predict the behaviour of the inks after normal usage of the fabrics. Comfort properties like stiffness of the fabrics were also evaluated after five and 10 washing cycles. It was observed that PE 825 ink forms a thicker film on the fabric surface, contributing to the loss of flexibility of the textile. However, PE 825 ink also produced the best results in terms of durability and lower values of resistance. Polyamide fabrics lost their conductive property after five washing cycles due to weak bonding between the ink and the fibres, whereas cotton fibres provided the best results.

Nanomaterials-patterned flexible electrodes for wearable health monitoring: a review

“…Although gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) have comparable conductivity to silver nanomaterials and resistant to corrosion or oxidation, the cost related to its rarity, and requirement of high temperature and high vacuum for effective deposition have always been driving factors for choosing Ag NPs and Ag NWs over Au NPs. Silver-based nanomaterials have the highest conductivity among the metals, low oxidation rate, and the advantage of easy deposition in the liquid phase has made these materials more attractive to researchers [ 9 , 108 , 109 ]. Copper nanoparticles (Cu NPs) have shown great promise in recent years as a preferable functional material due to comparable performance to silver nanomaterials in terms of conductivity, low cost, and stability in the presence of oxygen and moisture has made it effective in corrosive conditions [ 110 , 111 ].…”

“…Health monitoring data obtained from such an electrode are unreliable and inconsistent. Gomes et al studied the resistance variation in silver composite (PE 825) and silver conductive ink (PE 828) applied by the screen-printing technique on four different textile substrates such as 100% cotton, 50%/50% cotton/polyester, 100% polyester, and 100% polyamide [ 109 ]. The results showed PE 825 ink forms thick films on the textile substrate resulting in lower flexibility of the produced electrode.…”

“…([ e – f ] reproduced with permission from ref. [ 109 ] , Copyright © 2020, Society of Dyers and Colourists) …”

Flexible Pressure Sensors for Integration into Karate Body Protector

“…Different materials are applied as electrodes such as metal materials, carbon nanomaterials, ionic hydrogel and conducting polymers; an ideal stretchable electrode should maintain high conductivity under large strains, considering the usage of such electrodes in pressure sensors [ 3 , 33 ]. Especially, fabric electrodes fabricated using these materials are attracting attention due to their thermal behavior and washability [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. Several authors have studied the fabrication of piezoresistive material-based flexible pressure sensors.…”

ICONTEX and ICONWOOLF 2019 Special Issue

“…The final two papers have totally different approaches and goals, although they are linked in that each comes from researchers at the University of Minho in Portugal who are exploring topical means of producing functional or coloured textiles. In the first paper, Pedro Gomes and colleagues investigate the behaviour of conductive inks applied on different textile substrates treated and untreated with atmospheric plasma . Here, the method of choice for application of the conductive inks is conventional screen printing.…”