Name
Technical Session XV - MSEC-155649
Date & Time
Friday, June 27, 2025, 9:00 AM - 9:25 AM
Description
Flexible electronics (FE) have emerged as a key technology with applications in various fields, such as energy storage and bioelectronics. FE devices are commonly composed of flexible substrates and circuits that are subsequently sintered for improved device performance. Conventional methods, namely thin-film deposition, screen printing, and thermal sintering, have been used to successfully fabricate these devices. However, this multi-stage system does not offer the required manufacturing flexibility to rapidly adapt to the highly customized FE demand. Alternatively, electrospinning (ES), inkjet printing (IJP), and intense pulsed light (IPL), constitute a flexible multi-stage system capable to handle high customization requirements and is used in this study. In particular, ES can produce foldable membranes with tailored structures, high surface area, and effective absorption properties for subsequent inks deposition via IJP, which enables precise conductive patterns/circuits realization. For FE device performance enhancement (e.g., material strength, conductivity, etc.), the IPL sintering process, a photonic process capable to operate at room-temperature, is deployed. Although the ES/IJP/IPL-based multi-stage system seems to be suitable for on-demand FE devices manufacturing, the correlation of materials and process parameters of individual stages (i.e., ES/IP/IPL) with the PE devices performance (i.e., conductivity feasibility) remains unexplored. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to evaluate the efficient integration of ES, IJP, and IPL, for future production of high-performance PE devices. Different configurations of ES, polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based electrospun flexible membranes with various material concentrations (i.e., 8 wt%, 10 wt%, and 12 wt%) and process parameters (i.e., voltage, flow rate, and collector type), IJP, distinct number of deposited layers with water-based silver nanoparticle ink, and IPL, are assessed to investigate their influence on the PE device resistivity performance. The study includes (1) an experimental assessment of the electrospun membrane morphology (e.g., fiber diameter, alignment) and ink coating characteristics (e.g., absorption, porosity, homogeneity) using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and (2) a logistic regression (LR) classification model to predict PE conductive feasibility, which is complemented with a permutation feature importance analysis to quantify the impact of ES and IJP parameters on the PE resistivity. The results indicate that membranes with 12 wt% PAN concentration generate larger fiber diameters, which benefit ink penetration. Additionally, it is observed that the conductivity improves with respect to the number of inkjet printed layers. These findings are supported by the classification model (i.e., LR), where the number of printed layers, fiber diameter, and collector type, are identified as significant factors for accurately predicting conductive patterns/circuit feasibility.
Location Name
Gardenia
Full Address
Hyatt Regency
220 N Main St
Greenville, SC 29601
United States
220 N Main St
Greenville, SC 29601
United States
Session Type
Technical Session
Paper #
MSEC-155649
Author List
Pablo Andres Zuniga, Christian Zuniga-Navarrete, Stalin Jamil Segura, Zipeng Guo, Sabur Baidya, Christian Narvaez-Munoz, Jessica Koehne, Luis Javier Segura
Paper Title
Experimental Assessment and Data-Driven Modeling of 3D Printed Conductive Patterns on Electrospun Substrates
Session Chair
Ketki Lichade, Zipeng Guo