Potentials and Challenges in Inkjet Printing Conductive Inks on Textile Materials

The inkjet printing technique has been rapidly developing for the realization of flexible electronic devices. The radio-frequency identification (RFID), energy harvesting and organic light-emitting diode devices (OLED) has been successfully introduced on flexible substrates such as PET, PDMS and Kapton films. Since the inkjet printing technique is a direct writing process, the benefits include flexible design, low-cost and environmentally friendly. It is also possible to create a high resolution of printed lines. Therefore, this technique is believed to have a great potential for creating conductive patterns on textile substrates, which is an alternative approach to traditional methods that use conductive yarns. However, the challenge is to ensure that the small droplets can penetrate through the thickness of the fabric in order to spread along the threads. Thus, the continuity of deposited droplets is not high enough to achieve low electrical resistance. This paper summarises inkjet printing techniques and also looks for further developments in printing conductive tracks on textile substrates.