Synthesis of Ag nanoparticles using an electrolysis method and application to inkjet printing

Abstract

This paper reports a new mass-production method for synthesizing Ag nano-particles using electrolysis. In this method, Ag ions were directly and continuously extracted from 99 wt% Ag metal electrodes and a reduction agent reduced them to Ag nano-particles. By changing the applied voltage and electrolyte temperature, the average size of the synthesized Ag particles was shown to vary in the range of 10-80 nm. These particles were tested for the possibility of microparterning of the electrode on a polyimide substrate. As a result, patterns as fine as 50-100 mu m with a relatively low resistivity of 6.5 mu Omega cm were successfully obtained. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.