Research Information System
ACS Applied Electronic Materials, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
There is an urgent need to develop practical routes for manufacturing transient electronic devices to tackle the emerging issue of electronic waste and enable next-generation devices. This study reports additive patterning of conductive layers on industrially available water-soluble nonwoven fabrics composed of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA). Aqueous inks composed of reactive silver precursors can be practically patterned over water-soluble fabrics by inkjet printing. The efficient deposition of materials with droplet volumes on the order of picoliters ensures the generation of conductive patterns on a water-soluble fabric using a solution-processable fabrication with aqueous inks. The fabrication of conductive electrodes and transience behavior are studied on PVA fabrics with two different degrees of hydrolysis, providing tunability in the temperature-dependent degradation of the substrate. The application of the printed conductive pads is demonstrated in resistive heaters. The temperature of the fabric can exceed 100 °C in less than 15 s at a safe voltage of 3 V. The heater exhibits stable operation under cyclic heating and cooling. The presented approach presents key opportunities in additive patterning of aqueous solutions and colloidal dispersions over water-soluble substrates for transient device applications.