A low cost method to synthesize silver

nanoparticles for the screen printing

conductive inks

Zhuang Wanga,b, Tao Zhao\ Xiangwen
Lianga, PengLi Zhu\ Rong Suna.
aShenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology,
Chinese Academy of Science, Shenzhen, 518055,
China
bNano Science and Technology Institute,
University of Science and Technology of China,
Suzhou, 215123, China
tao.zhao@siat.ac.cn rong.sun@siat.ac.cn

Abstract-For the electronic industry, it is very annealing furnace, the optimal electrical resistivity

important to fabricate high quality conductive of 5.0 �n·cm is achieved which can serve as

circuits. At present, the most used conductive lines for printed electronics.

photolithography technology involves many steps

Keywords: silver nanoparticles; conductive inks;
such as etching, electroplating, and etc, that it is
screen printing.
time consuming and high cost. So it is necessary to

development much low cost and easy operation I. INTRODUCTION

processing techniques to resolve the problems.
For the conventionally printed circuit board
Among them, the screen printing technology is
(PCB) industry, conductive circuits have been
considered as a promising candidate. In this work,
made by electroplating and etching processes.
large scale monodisperse silver nanoparticIes were
The process is chemical waste and requires
synthesized by a polyol process. In this reaction,
many complicated steps, so it is important to
the poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)(PVP) was used as the
fmd a new easy and more economically way to
stabilizer to prevent the silver nanoparticIes from
be the alternatives for the process [1-3]. As a
aggregation and precipitation, the silver nitrate
direct printing technology, traditional screen
was used as the source of silver ions, the ethylene
printing has attracted more and more interest in
glycol both as the solvent and reduce agent.
recent years. Screen printing can not only
Through this facile and low cost process,
control the chemical waste effect but also print
monodisperse silver nanoparticIes were prepared
the conductive circuits onto various substrates in
with a diameter around 70nm. The synthetic silver
one step. Compare with the conventionally PCB
nanoparticIes still have a very good dispersion
process, the screen printing is cost-effective,
after being stored for a long time. Based on the
simplicity, speed and versatile. For the screen
prepared silver nanoparticIes, the conductive inks
printing process, the printing variables have a
for screen printing were fabricated. A variety of
great influence on the quality and characteristics,
conductive patterns for different applications were
such as printing speed, printing stress, distance
obtained by screen printing the inks onto the
between the stencil and substrate, etc [4-7].
flexbile polyimide(PI) substrates. After sintering at

240°C for 30 min under argon atmosphere in the As the most important factor, conductive

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 inks with different conductive filler have been Cellulose and other ink component were bought
studied, such as molten metal, conducting from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co. Ltd.
polymers and metallic nanomaterials [8]. Among Polyimide film was purchased from Yunda
them, metallic nanomaterials such as Ag, Au, Cu Electronic Materials Co., Ltd.
have gained much attentions for the good
B. FABRiCATION OF SiLVER NANOPARTICLES AND
electrical conductivity and operability at room
CONDUCTIVE iNKS
temperature [9]. Especially, the Ag nanoparticles
The silver nanoparticles were prepared by
is recognized as one of the most promising
polyol process. In a general process, 40 ml of
conductive filler as compare with the Au and Cu
0.54M freshly prepared ethylene glycol solution
nanoparticles, the Ag nanoparticles is difficult to
of PVP and 30 ml of 0.16 M freshly prepared
be oxidized at room temperature and cheap [10].
ethylene glycol solution of AgN03 were added
At present, the main obstacle for the spread of
into a flask. The mixture was kept at 130 °C for
the silver conductive inks is the cost of
30 min, when the color of the solution changed
production and the quality of the inks. It is still a
from colorless to gray which indicated the
challenge to synthesis Ag nanoparticles in a
fabricating of the silver nanoparticles, stop the
large scale with low cost. Besides, the sintering
reaction and cool the solution to room
temperature of the conductive inks also should
temperature. After washed several times with
be reduced to meet the requirement of different
ethanol via centrifugation, silver nanoparticles
substrates.
powder was obtained. The fabricated silver
In this work, large scale monodisperse nanoparticles dispersed into the mixture consist
silver nanoparticles were synthesized via the of ethanol and hydroxyethyl cellulose to
polyol process. In this process, the prepared the conductive inks.
polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was used as the
C. CHARACTERTZATlON
stabilizer to prevent the silver nanoparticles from
aggregation and precipitation, the silver nitrate X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies were performed

(AgN03) was used as the source of silver ions, on a Rigaku DlMax 2500 with monochromated

the ethylene glycol both as the solvent and Cu Ka radiation. SEM images were taken using

reduce agent. Through this process, a field-emission scanning electron microscope

monodisperse silver nanoparticles were prepared ( FE-SEM, FEI Nova Nana SEM 450). UV-vis

with a diameter around 70nm. Based on the absorption spectra were taken on an UV-vis-NIR

prepared silver nanoparticles, the conductive spectrometer (Shimadzu UV-3600).

inks for screen printing were fabricated. A series III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
of conductive patterns were printed onto the
polyimide (PI) substrates. After sintering at
240°C for 30 min in the annealing furnace, the
optimal electrical resistivity of 5.0 flQ·cm is
achieved, which can serve as conductive lines
for printed electronics.

II. EXPERIMENTAL

A. MATERTALS

Silver nitrate was bought from Guangzhou

Figure. 1 The XRD patterns of the prepared silver
Chemical Reagent Factory. Ethylene glycol,
nanoparticles
Polyyinylpyrrolidone K-30, Hydroxyethyl

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 Figure. 1 shows the XRD pattern of the
prepared silver nanoparticles. All the diffraction
peaks are consistent with the face-centered cubic
(fcc) structure of bulk silver (JPDE, 04-0783).
No other impurity, such as Ag20 phases are
observed, indicating silver can be prepared with Figure. 3 The pictures of different screen printing patterns
this polyol process. Besides, the sharp and strong
peaks mean that the obtained silver nanoparticles Figure. 4 show the SEM images of the
with good crystallinity. conductive lines after sintering at different
temperature for 30 min. Figure. 4a show the
Figure. 2 give a look to the morphologies of
images of conductive lines without heat
the prepared silver nanoparticles with various
treatment, we can see the spherical structure of
resolution. As shown in the Figure. 3, the
the silver nanoparticles obvious and the silver
prepared silver nanoparticles have a regular
nanoparticles apart from each other. When the
spherical-like structure and no other strange
conductive lines sintering at 120°C for 30 min,
morphologies such as nanorod and nanosheet
the near silver nanoparticles contact to each
appear. This indicates the monodisperse silver
other and the spherical structure become fuzzy.
nanoparticles were prepared by the polyol
As the temperature increases, more and more
process. Besides, the silver nanoparticles is apart
particles contact with each other and the
from each other. After storing for a long time, no
electrical resistivity gradually decreases. When
significant change occurred. The result shows
the sintering temperature increases to 240°C, the
that the prepared silver nanoparticles have a
silver nanoparticles completely interconnect
good dispersity which can meet the requirement
with each other and it is difficult to distinguish
of the high quality conductive inks.
the shape of the particles.

Figure. 2 The SEM images of prepared silver nanoparticles

Figure. 3 show a variety of printing patterns

which were fabricated by screen printed the
silver conductive inks on the PI substrate. After
drying at room temperature for 10 min the
printed patterns show a good adhesion to the
substrate. Although, the resistivity of the printed
patterns was high because of the isolative
residual organic which hinder the free move of
the electrons through the printed lines. To
achieve high electrical conductivity,
necessary to remove the organic between the
silver nanoparticles with a heat treatment.
Figure. 4 The SEM images of the conductive lines after
sintering at different temperature (a) 120°C, (b) 150°C, (c)
Figures. 5 show the electrical resistivity of
silver conductive lines after sintering at different
temperature for 30 min. When the conductive
lines sintering at 120 °C, only the near silver
nanoparticles contact to each other and the
it IS
electrical resistance was 2. 9x10.5 n·cm. As the
sintering temperature increased to 240 °C, the
resistivity reached to 5.0 xl0·6 n'cm which was

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 about 3 times of the bulk silver (1.586x 10-6 Plan (JSGG20 150512145714246,
D·cm). The reason of the decrease in resistivity JCYJ20140610152828685 and
because of the removed of the organic between JCYJ20150831154213681).
the particles and the formation of s dense layer
like bulk silver which contributed to the decrease
of the contact resistance. REFERENCES

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Figure. 5 Electrical resistivity of silver conductive circuits
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IV. SUMMARY Song, Nanotechnology., 22(42), 425601 (2011).

In summary, we prepared monodisperse [7] S. B. Hoff, Screen printing: A contemporary approach,

silver nanoparticles with low cost by polyol Delmar (1997).

process and the silver conductive inks based on [8] R. He, X. F. Qian, J. Yin, Z. K. Zhu, J. Mater. Chern.,

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the printed patterns get a good conductivity.

Especial, the resistivity of 5.0 x10-6 D'cm was
achieved after sintering at 240 °C for 30 min.
This can be good meet the requirement of the
printed electrical industry.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This wore was financially supported by the

National Basic Research Program of China (973
Program, 2015CB057206), the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (2 I 571186),
Guangdong Innovative Research Team Program
(No. 20110052 and KYPT20121228160843692),
Key Laboratory of Guangdong Province
(2014B03030 I 014), "Guangdong TeZhiPlan"
Youth Talent of Science and Technology
(2014 TQO1C I 02), Shenzhen Basic Research

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