We are all makers
Thanks to recent scientific advances, you can buy conductive inks in the form of pens, paints, and even printer cartridges, but have you ever wondered if you could make your own?
You can, and following a simple process developed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Materials Research Laboratory, itʼs actually quite easy to produce the conductive ink at home.
The following steps have been adapted from the UIUC paper titled “Reactive Silver Inks for Patterning High-Conductivity Features at Mild Temperatures,” and have been simplified for the amateur chemist.
CAUTION: The chemicals used are strong-smelling, corrosive, and can stain skin and clothes. You must wear chemical-splash safety goggles, neoprene gloves, a long-sleeve shirt, pants, and close-toed shoes. Due to the fumes created, this project must be done outside or in a fume hood.
Preparation
Clean all glassware and tools and lay them out on your work surface. It is important to read through all of the steps, and make sure that you understand them thoroughly before beginning.
You said it is fragile, how fragile? Do you think this could be used for electroplating copper onto 3D printed parts?
It might be possible, but the real trick is getting the ink to stick to the surface. I’m currently experimenting with low-cost methods of boosting surface energy of substrate materials, so hopefully I’ll have something to post on that soon.
My primary concerns on using the ink as a pre-plating layer would be cost and surface adhesion. At this point, I would recommend more traditional methods (such as vacuum metalizing) for plating plastic parts.
Can this be used for making very reflective coatings, such as a headlight reflector or simulated chrome “brightwork”?
The resulting ink isn’t very reflective, and is more a matte light gray color, so unfortunately it wouldn’t work very well for brightwork.
Thanks for the reply.
Careful, some components like Formic Acid may lead to death if not handled following the proper security steps.
What is the maximum conductivity that can be achieved?
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