Comparative analysis of printed electronic circuits applying different printing technologies in the endurance test

Abstract

The aim of the study is the question, whether printed electronics circuitry from low-cost printers can be improved in quality by certain ink combinations or after-treatments in order to achieve acceptable results in comparison with circuitry from higher-quality printers. For this purpose, the six samples circuitries from different printers (professional and semi-professional) and different ink combinations (PEDOT: PSS, Silver and Carbon) were subjected to an endurance test of 5 million switching cycles under varying climatic conditions. For this purpose test number of N = 5 experimental evaluations were carried out for each samples (in total of 30 experimental evaluations were done). The results show that, respectable results could be achieved with corresponding ink and post-treatment combinations. This opens up new possibilities for future developments in the field of printers, inks and post-treatments under the aspect of “low-cost”.

Keywords

• low-cost printers| conductive ink| switch| electronic circuits| printed electronics