Iranian researchers at Amirkabir University of Technology used copper nanoparticles to produce a kind of conductive ink that has application in printed circuit boards.
Amir Rezvani Moghadam, the project manager, said conductive inks are a new generation of inks with various applications including solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), radio-frequency identification (RFID) antennas, and electronic circuits.
Traditional production uses too much copper
He went on to add "In the traditional production of circuit boards, after copper deposition on carbon fibers, the plan of the circuit is drawn on a copper board using a letraset or a waterproof marker. Then, after the acid wash, the parts covered with letraset will remain on the board and used as an electric circuit.” The Iranian researcher said the traditional production of circuit boards uses too much copper and is highly time-consuming "To solve this problem, we executed a project on the production of conductive inks as a new method to replace the traditional one.”
Improving copper oxidation resistance
"In this research, a kind of conductive ink was produced that will be applied on demand on a circuit board,” he explained. "This method is far more cost-efficient and takes far less time in producing circuit boards.” Rezvani deemed one problem with using conductive inks as the oxidation of the copper nanoparticles in them, adding "To solve this problem, we used a special chemical method to preserve the copper nanoparticles from oxidation. This method considerably improved copper oxidation resistance and reduced the oxygen on the surface of the nanoparticles to a minimum.”