Hello,
I am trying to deposit carbon black on a flat surface via inkjet printing. I followed many methods in literature such as;
‘Elaboration of a microstructured inkjet-printed carbon electrochemical capacitor’.[Online]. Available: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775309015250
And
P. Kossyrev, ‘Carbon black super capacitors employing thin electrodes’, Journal of Power Sources, vol. 201, pp. 347–352, Mar. 2012.
Additionally, tried water and organic solvents; NMP, ethylene glycol, IPA, Terpineol with loading rate of carbon black varying from 1,2 mg/mL to 120 mg/mL.
To increase stability of carbon black, used dispersants such as triton x-100 and ethyl cellulose. Further, used different carbon black, 1) ketjenblack from Akzonobel, 2) Mogul E and 3) Vulcan XC72R from Cabot incorporation.
For uniform dispersion, ultrasonic irradiation with 200 W power was used. Filtration was followed to reject the particle greater than 200 nm.
However, couldn’t perform inkjet printing process.
It is clear that I couldn’t decrease particle dimension less than 200 nm. Can anyone advise how to obtain the stabilized inkjet ink having carbon black particle dimension less than 200 nm with uniform dispersion.
Thanks in advance
Regards.
Ramazan
Ramazan,
Ultrasonic spray on an XY table has proven successful in many carbon applications. The ultrasonic agitation that causes atomization also helps to keep the carbon homogeneously dispersed while applying it. The thinness of the final film can be improved by decreasing the concentration of carbon by volume in whatever carrier that is chosen.
http://www.sono-tek.com/spraying-nanosuspensions/
Can you describe the problems that occur during printing? Nozzles are clogged?You have long filaments near your main droplet? ...
I think, before printing you must check, the rheological parameters of your ink (e.g. viscosity, surface tension...) in order to respect inkjet printing requirements.
Have a look on this publication:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsami.5b06678?journalCode=aamick
Generally its not easy to prepare a stable carbon black formulation with less binder and without modified particles or nanoparticles. In the mentioned publication they used activated carbon, that's completely different to carbon black and they used nearly double amount of binder compared to carbon content. Both is optimal for a stable ink, but you get a huge loss in conductivity. From my point of view you need a excellent combination of less binder (PTFE or PVDF - is often used for such ionic applications), the right solvent (ethylen glycol, maybe mixture with IPA or NMP), low amount of carbon and a fitting surfactant (triton maybe is not the best, maybe zonyl - but they are both in water disolved). HTH
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