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| Successful development of environmentally friendly, water-based inks for selected electroceramics performing as desired in different ink-jet printing setups. (M18) |
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Future work : Commercialize the outcomes of the successful research programme and address as many markets as possible to broaden the applicability of this projects deliverables, i.e. :
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Progress beyond the state-of-the art
Much of the development recorded on ceramic thin films has been based on high temperature processing and physical deposition methods. For bulk materials, the most widely used method for producing ceramics still is the solid state reaction starting from a mixture of powders. For the reaction to proceed at a reasonable rate, high mobility of the reactants and thus high temperatures are needed. Functionality in thin films and surface engineering has been introduced through high-energy production methods like gaseous and/or vacuum technologies, ion beam/plasma processing, etc. To reduce energy consumption and investment costs, scientists have to search for alternatives to such high-energy production methods.
In this regard, soft processing for advanced ceramics has been developed, opening the way for a new generation of low expenditure of energy in chemical engineering. The possibility to fabricate a variety of materials from solutions has been demonstrated already, but for the design of innovative materials processing, particularly when rapid and environmentally friendly routes are preferred, significant industrial progress is still needed. Development of energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly CSD methods, control over the kinetics of the process, fundamental understanding of particle assembly in solution and development of appropriate modified processing techniques are some of the innovative issues currently being addressed in this project.
During the first part of our project, progress was made far beyond the state-of-the-art. Completely new, innovative, nanochemical routes were developed to engineer advanced functional ceramic thin films. The team performed fundamental and applied research on two levels : (1) formulation of environmentally friendly precursor inks allowing high quality production at low-energy input and (2) the application of these inks in semi-custom ink-jet printing CSD equipment designs. This resulted in high quality, functionally-graded thin films by low cost, flexible and customizable deposition systems, allowing a clear reduction in processing steps, energy input and costs.
