3D Printing of Solar Cell Contacts with Metal Reactive Inks

使用金属活性墨水 3D 打印太阳能电池触点

基本信息

批准号：
1904554
负责人：
Owen Hildreth
金额：
$ 11.31万
依托单位：
Colorado School of Mines
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2018-07-04 至 2019-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1904554&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
3D Printing Solar Cell Contacts

项目摘要

Current solar cell contacts are made by screen-printing silver pastes and then sintering the silver particles together at high temperatures to form a conductive electrode. However, the high-temperature sintering step is costly and is not compatible with thin-film solar cell technologies. One solution is to use low-temperature reactive inks. Reactive inks print chemicals (instead of printing particles) that react at low temperatures, and can potentially produce dense materials with good electrical conductivity. Unfortunately, non-optimized reactive inks tend to produce high porosity in printed materials. This award supports fundamental research to enable development of new silver and copper reactive inks that can print conductive materials with very low porosity. These new inks can have applications in photovoltaics and low-cost flexible electronics.The first research objective is to understand the effect of ink composition (including ligand type, reactant concentration, and solvent) on the chemical and fluid properties of reactive inks. Relevant ink properties under investigation include reaction activation energy, Arrhenius pre-exponential factor, heat-of-vaporization, diffusion coefficient, viscosity, and surface tension. This objective will be achieved by experimentally measuring relevant properties as ligand type (examples: [(NH3)2CH3CO2]-, [(NH3)2NO3]-, and 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol), reactant concentration (10 µmol/L to 1 mol/L), and solvent type (ethanol, water, glycerol, and 2,3-butandiol) are varied. Activation energy, Arrhenius pre-exponential factor, and heat of vaporization will be measured using a differential scanning calorimeter and a thermogravimetric analyzer; diffusion coefficient will be measured using chronoamperometry and cyclic voltammetry; viscosity will be measured using a microVISC rheometer; and surface tension will be measured using a custom goniometer. The second research objective is to understand the effect of ink composition and processing parameters on chemical potential distribution in evaporating reactive ink droplets. To achieve this objective, simulations will be conducted using Comsol Multiphysics equipped with heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, chemical reaction engineering, and particle tracing modules. These simulations will predict the chemical potential distribution in evaporating reactive ink droplets as ink composition and processing parameters are varied. The third research objective is to understand the effect of reaction kinetics on particle nucleation and growth rate distributions in evaporating reactive ink droplets. To achieve this objective, particle nucleation and growth rate distributions will be modeled using the classical nucleation theory with activation energies taken from the literature. The reaction kinetics will be calculated using the measured reaction activation energy, the measured Arrhenius pre-exponential factor, and the simulated chemical potential distribution. Some predicted results will be compared with experimental observations.

当前的太阳能电池是通过屏幕印刷的，并在高温下将灰浆固定在一起，但是高温烧结步骤是昂贵的，并且与薄纤维太阳能电池技术不兼容使用低温的inks。反应性ks的曲折包括反应能量，ARRHENIUS前体因子，差异离子系数和表面张力：[（NH3）2CH3CO2] -2-甲基-1-丙醇），反应物浓度（10 µmol/L至1 mol/L）和溶剂类型（etranol，水，水，甘油和2,3-丁二醇）ARRHENIUS前碱性因子和热量蒸发将是平均的标量和热量分析仪；配备热传递，化学CTION工程和粒子追踪模块的多物质。将反应性墨水液滴达到此目标，并将具有激活能量的经典核能建模为文献。潜在的分布将与实验观察结果进行比较。

项目成果

期刊论文数量（4）

专著数量（0）

科研奖励数量（0）

会议论文数量（0）

专利数量（0）

A percolative approach to investigate electromigration failure in printed Ag structures

DOI：
10.1063/1.4963755
发表时间：
2016-09
期刊：
Journal of Applied Physics
影响因子：
3.2
作者：
Zhao Zhao-Zhao;Avinash Mamidanna;Christopher S. Lefky;O. Hildreth;T. Alford
通讯作者：
Zhao Zhao-Zhao;Avinash Mamidanna;Christopher S. Lefky;O. Hildreth;T. Alford

Drop-on-demand printed microfluidics device with sensing electrodes using silver and PDMS reactive inks