Facile synthesis of monodisperse silver nanoparticles for screen printing conductive inks

Monodisperse silver nanoparticles with high concentration are successful synthesized by a modified polyol process under a relatively low mass ratio of PVP to AgNO3. The obtained silver nanoparticles with excellent stability and dispersity possess a mean diameter of about 118 nm and the yield reach to 80 wt%. Then, using the as-prepared silver nanoparticles as filler together with other additives, conductive inks were formulated. This kind of conductive ink could be screen-printed on polyimide substrates to obtain a series of electrical conductive circuits. A relatively low resistivity of 8.3 × 10− 6 Ω·cm which was only five times larger than that of bulk silver was achieved under sintering at 220 °C for 30 min under air atmosphere. Meanwhile, the electrical conductive circuits kept outstanding mechanical performance. So this silver nanoparticles filled electrical conductive inks has the potential applications in flexible wearable devices.