Influence of Surface Chemical and Topographical Properties on Morphology, Wettability and Surface Coverage of Inkjet-Printed Graphene-Based Materials

Abstract

The inkjet printing of water-based graphene and graphene oxide inks on five substrates, two rigid (silicon and glass) and three flexible (cellulose, indium tin oxide-coated polyethylene terephthalate (ITO-PET) and ceramic coated paper (PEL paper)), is reported in this work. The physical properties of the inks, the chemical/topographical properties of selected substrates, and the inkjet printing (IJP) of the graphene-based materials, including the optimisation of the printing parameters together with the morphological characterisation of the printed layers, are investigated and described in this article. Furthermore, the impact of both the chemical and topographical properties of the substrates and the physical properties of graphene-based inks on the morphology, wettability and surface coverage of the inkjet-printed graphene patterns is studied and discussed in detail.

Keywords

• inkjet printing
• graphene ink
• graphene oxide ink
• morphology
• wettability
• surface coverage