Yonghyun Le  Chang-Ho Choi

Vol. 30,  No. 4, pp. 298-305, Dec.  2024
10.7464/ksct.2024.30.4.298

Graphene Inkjet printing conductive ink Printed electronics

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Various liquid-phase exfoliation techniques have been researched for the mass production of graphene. As a result, significant progress has been made in using mass produced graphene for printed electronics. Liquid-phase exfoliation requires selecting suitable solvents and additives in order to enhance the graphene yield. However, these solvents are mainly organic and the additives are often incompatible with graphene ink formulation. Consequently, these solvents must be removed and replaced with solvents more suitable for the printing process, but doing so complicates ink formulation and increases the environmental harm of the process. To address this issue, this study produced graphene using solvents and additives that are compatible with the ink formulation process and optimized the production process to enhance the graphene yield and productivity. As a result, high-quality graphene ink with high productivity was obtained compared to the typical graphene production methods by removing the need for an additional ink formulation step. Furthermore, the ink demonstrated suitable physical properties for inkjet printing because it consistently formed stable droplets despite its high concentration. Additionally, printed graphene patterns with high resolution were fabricated. They displayed high electrical conductivity with a low number of print passes. These results indicate that this study’s graphene ink offers potential for the mass production of high-quality conductive graphene patterns for printed electronics.