Rheological behavior of silver nanowire conductive inks during screen printing

The rheological behavior of silver nanowire (AgNW) suspensions adapted for screen printing inks was investigated. Aqueous silver nanowire inks consisting of AgNW (length of 30 μm, and diameter of 40 and 90 nm), dispersant and binder were formulated. The effect of AgNW content on the rheological behavior of the ink and the build-up of ink structure after screen printing were examined as they depend on applied shear and temperature. Rheological measurements under conditions that mimic the screen printing process were done to assess viscoelastic properties induced by flow alignment of the wires and the subsequent recovery of the low shear structure. The Stretched Exponential model (SEmo) was used to model the recovery process after screen printing to obtain the characteristic time of the recovery or build-up process. The characteristic time was determined at several temperatures to obtain the activation energy of recovery. The domination of Brownian motion or non-Brownian motion behavior can be characterized by a Peclet number, which is the ratio of shear rate to the rotational diffusion coefficient. The Peclet number and the dimensionless concentration of wires were used to assess the recovery mechanism. The steady viscosity at low and high shear rates was also treated by an activation energy analysis.