(583e) Synthesis and Characterization of Silver Nanowire for Printable Conductive Media

Screen printing of conductive inks is a promising technologies for applications including solar panel current collectors. In this work, the purpose is to create ink with a low resistance, allowing for the higher collection of solar radiation to increase efficiency. Conductive inks generally contain metal powder, solvent, binder, and rheological agent. Among different forms and types of metal powder, 1D silver nanostructures or silver nanowires have gained attention due to their unique electrical, thermal, and optical properties. We have used a polyol process to synthesis silver nanowire in a scaled up batch reactor. The morphology and microstructure were characterized by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Based on these materials, silver nanowire inks, suitable for screen printing process, have been formulated with various silver and binder contents. The inks show time-dependent thixotropic behavior. Rheological measurements under conditions that resemble the screen printing process have been done on the conductive inks to assess visco-elastic properties induced by flow alignment of the wires. Flow-induced alignment in screen printed samples was characterized by SEM.