Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, have developed a brand new, more environmentally friendly strategy to create conductive inks to be used in organic electronics equivalent to solar cells, artificial neurons, and soft sensors. The findings, published within the journal Nature Communications, pave the way in which for future sustainable technology.
Organic electronics are on the rise as a complement and, in some cases, a substitute to traditional silicon-based electronics. Because of easy manufacturing, high flexibility, and low weight combined with the electrical properties typically related to traditional semiconductors, it may well be useful for applications equivalent to digital displays, energy storage, solar cells, sensors, and soft implants.
Organic electronics are built from semiconducting plastics, generally known as conjugated polymers. Nonetheless, processing conjugated polymers often requires environmentally hazardous, toxic, and flammable solvents. This can be a major obstacle to the wide business and sustainable use of organic electronics.
Now, researchers at Linköping University have developed a brand new sustainable method for processing these polymers from water. Along with being more sustainable, the brand new inks are also highly conductive.
“Our research introduces a brand new approach to processing conjugated polymers using benign solvents equivalent to water. With this method, called ground-state electron transfer, we not only get around the issue of using hazardous chemicals, but we may also exhibit improvements in material properties and device performance,” says Simone Fabiano, senior associate professor on the Laboratory of Organic Electronics.
When researchers tested the brand new conductive ink as a transport layer in organic solar cells, they found that each stability and efficiency were higher than with traditional materials. Additionally they tested the ink to create electrochemical transistors and artificial neurons, demonstrating operating frequencies much like biological neurons.
“I imagine that these results can have a transformative impact on the sphere of organic electronics. By enabling the processing of organic semiconductors from green and sustainable solvents like water, we will mass-produce electronic devices with minimal impact on the environment,” says Simone Fabiano, a Wallenberg Academy Fellow.
