Background
The conventional printed electronic technology includes gravure printing, screen printing, inkjet printing, photolithography, laser etching, etc., however, some disadvantages of the conventional printed electronic technology greatly limit the further development of the printed electronic technology. For example, the aerosol jet printing technology is developed to overcome the problems of low pattern positioning accuracy, low resolution (greater than 20 μm), complex and toxic manufacturing process, high manufacturing cost, low material utilization rate, and the like. The aerosol jet printing technology is a non-contact direct-writing digital additive manufacturing technology, the printing resolution of the aerosol jet printing technology can reach 10 mu m level, and the problems of low graphic precision and low resolution of the printing electronic technology are solved to a certain extent.
Aerosol refers to a dispersion of solid or liquid particles of any substance dispersed and suspended in a gaseous medium with a specific law of motion. Wherein the suspended particles are called dispersed phase with size of 0.001-100 μm, and the gas carrying the particles is called dispersion medium. The aerosol jet printing technology is a new method for atomizing functional material ink into small droplets and then jetting and printing the droplets on a substrate through a focusing nozzle so as to realize miniature digital additive manufacturing. The method is widely applied to the field of electronic printing, such as jet printing of metal electrodes, electric leads, solar cell films and the like.
The main advantages of the aerosol jet printing technology are as follows: the printing resolution is high; the printing precision is high; the applicable ink material range is wide, and the ink material can be organic semiconductor materials and carbon nano materials, functional ceramics, composite materials and the like; can work in the range of 1.5 mm (distance between the outlet of the nozzle of the device and the surface of the substrate), thereby ensuring that the aerosol jet printing technology can be used for printing complex and fine structures. However, the existing aerosol jet printing technology still has partial problems to be solved, such as an overspray phenomenon (liquid drop deposition beyond an ideal jet printing area); aerosol density instability; the traditional aerosol spray printing adopts ultrasonic wave or pneumatic atomization, the pneumatic atomization needs large-flow carrier gas, so that a virtual impactor is adopted as a mist drop and carrier gas filtering device, the main function is to remove redundant mist drops and redundant carrier gas, the ultrasonic atomization directly conveys the mist drops to a spray printing head through the carrier gas, uniform mist drops are not easily obtained, and the density of the aerosol is unstable, so that the final spray printing stability is influenced; the traditional aerosol spray printing device adopts a single-sheath gas layer structure, and the technology is often applied to high-precision occasions, so that the diameter of a nozzle outlet is less than 1mm and even less than 0.1mm, if the speed of the nozzle outlet is too high, the outlet pressure is reduced sharply, large backflow is formed at the nozzle outlet, and finally the nozzle is blocked and even damaged.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide an aerosol jet printing method which can provide aerosol with stable density and is not easy to cause nozzle blockage and a jet printing head matched with the aerosol jet printing method.
In order to solve the technical problems, the technical solution of the invention is as follows:
a double-sheath gas aerosol jet printing method is characterized by comprising the following steps:
atomizing liquid drops to form fog drops;
step two, sorting the fog drops to obtain small-particle-size fog drops with consistent sizes;
step three, sucking the small particle fog drops by using a Venturi tube and mixing the small particle fog drops with carrier gas to form aerosol;
introducing focusing sheath gas to the periphery of the aerosol to shrink the aerosol to form a compact aerosol bundle;
and step five, introducing protective sheath gas around the dense gas-dissolved micelles by the nozzle to inhibit the divergence of the dense gas-dissolved micelles after leaving the nozzle.
Preferably, in the first step, the droplet atomization is realized by using a surface acoustic wave.
Preferably, in the first step, the droplets are atomized by using an array of interdigitated metal electrodes surrounding the droplets.
Preferably, in the second step, the fog drops with different sizes are sorted by using the gravity of the fog drops, the fog drops with large particle size and low height are settled and recovered, and the fog drops with small particle size float into the space provided with the venturi tube higher than the partition plate for sorting the fog drops.
Preferably, in the fourth step, a ring-shaped focusing sheath gas is formed around the aerosol, and the focusing sheath gas acts on the aerosol to focus and shrink the aerosol to form a dense aerosol bundle.
Preferably, in the fifth step, an annular protective sheath gas is formed around the dense aerosol particles ejected from the nozzle, thereby suppressing divergence of the dense aerosol particles after leaving the nozzle.
Preferably, the venturi tube is vertically arranged, the upper end of the venturi tube is provided with a carrier gas inlet, carrier gas enters the venturi tube from the carrier gas inlet, the side wall of the venturi tube is provided with a droplet inlet, and small-particle-size droplets with the same size are obtained through separation in the second step and are sucked into the venturi tube from the droplet inlet to be mixed with the carrier gas to form aerosol.
A jet head comprises a jet head cover body, a glue outlet protective shell, an aerosol supply channel positioned in the center and an aerosol focusing piece positioned around the aerosol supply channel, wherein the jet head cover body and the aerosol focusing piece are mutually connected in a covering manner; the aerosol supply passage includes that it installs the nozzle to advance gluey section and rectification section and low reaches end, seted up out gluey mouth on the nozzle, first sheath air cavity is through first intake duct UNICOM the rectification section, first intake duct is in advance gluey section with first gas outlet has been seted up between the rectification section, second sheath air cavity UNICOM second intake duct, the second intake duct is equipped with the second gas outlet, the second gas outlet is aimed at the nozzle.
Preferably, the first sheath air cavity and the second sheath air cavity are annular, and the first air outlet and the second air outlet are also annular.
Preferably, the nozzle comprises a conical head of an inverted cone which is hollow in the lower section and a mounting head which is hollow in the upper section; the conical head overcoat is equipped with out and glues the protective housing, go out to glue the protective housing center and set up the protection through-hole of back taper, the conical head stretches out downwards the protection through-hole just form between the conical surface of the interior conical surface of protection through-hole and conical head the second intake duct forms between the conical surface of protection through-hole under shed and conical head the second gas outlet, the second gas outlet is aimed at the nozzle.
After the scheme is adopted, the invention has the following advantages:
1. a plurality of surface acoustic wave generating devices are adopted to atomize liquid drops, so that the atomizing efficiency is improved, and atomized particles with smaller sizes are obtained;
2. the atomized fogdrops are sorted, and the aerosol is converged to form a dense aerosol bundle by focusing the sheath gas, so that the density stability of the aerosol is improved, and the over-spray phenomenon is avoided;
3. the protective sheath gas is adopted to protect the dense aerosol micelles when the dense aerosol micelles are ejected, so that the aerosol can be effectively prevented from being diffused after being ejected, and the fineness of aerosol jet printing is improved.
Detailed Description
The invention is described in further detail below with reference to the figures and the specific embodiments.
The invention discloses a double-sheath gas aerosol jet printing method and a device adopted by the method, and the method and the device are explained below. As shown in fig. 1-10, the method involves a jet printing apparatus including an aerosol generating assembly and an aerosol jet head, which are integrated into a single apparatus, resulting in a more compact overall jet printing apparatus. As shown in fig. 1, the aerosol generating assembly includes an atomizing assembly 2 and a droplet sorting assembly 1 which are communicated with each other, droplets 90 pass through the atomizing assembly 2 to form droplets 91 with different sizes, and an aerosol 95 with uniform particle size and stable density can be obtained through the droplet sorting assembly 1. As shown in fig. 7-8, the aerosol print head 3 is communicated with the mist sorting assembly 1 through the venturi tube 4, the venturi tube 4 obtains the sorted mist 91 from the mist sorting assembly 1 and uses the sorted mist for the aerosol print head 3, as shown in fig. 2, 7 and 10, the aerosol print head 3 comprises an aerosol supply channel 30 located in the center, an aerosol focusing member is arranged around the aerosol supply channel 30, the aerosol 95 is gathered by the aerosol focusing member to form a dense aerosol bundle 97 with relatively stable density, the conversion of the aerosol into the dense aerosol bundle can inhibit the overspray phenomenon, and the risk of nozzle blockage and damage is reduced.
First, as shown in fig. 1 and 7, the droplet sorting assembly 1 of the present embodiment is a cavity 10 with a partition plate 11 mounted therein, the cavity 10 is enclosed by a rectangular parallelepiped body, the rectangular parallelepiped body includes a groove body 12 and a cover body 13 which are mutually covered, and the groove body 12 and the cover body 13 are locked by bolts. Baffle 11 is vertical to be installed in cavity 10 and divide into atomizing chamber 101 and hybrid chamber 102 with cavity 10, it is concrete, the fixed slot 14 of U type has been seted up along cell body 12 cross-section on the cell body 12 inner wall, the bottom of fixed slot 14 is regarded as accumulator 141 simultaneously, insert fixed slot 14 behind two sides of baffle 11 cup joint rubber 15, rubber 15 avoids the droplet to pass from baffle 11 and cell body 12 joint gap, atomizing chamber 101 is through into fog mouth 103 UNICOM with hybrid chamber 102 top, atomizing component 2 installs in atomizing chamber 101, atomizing component 2 forms the droplet atomizing with the droplet atomizing, and utilize the gravity that the droplet receives and baffle 11 to sort the droplet. The fog drops with different grain diameters are separated from each other under the action of gravity, finally, the larger fog drops are limited in the atomizing cavity 101 under the action of gravity and the partition plate 11 and slowly settle to enter the recovery groove 141, then the larger fog drops are recovered through the recovery holes 142 in the recovery groove 141 and enter the atomizing cavity 101 again in the form of liquid drops, the smaller fog drops can bypass from the upper part of the partition plate 11 to enter the mixing cavity 102, the Venturi tube 4 is installed in the mixing cavity 102, and the bypassed smaller fog drops can be sucked by the Venturi tube 4 and mixed with the carrier gas 94 to form aerosol 95 and enter the aerosol jet printing head 3.
In order to obtain higher atomization efficiency and smaller droplet particle size, the atomization assembly 2 in the atomization cavity 101 is a surface acoustic wave atomization chip. As shown in fig. 7-9, the saw atomizing chip is fixedly mounted on the bottom surface of the atomizing chamber 101 through a positioning block 21 and a bolt, the saw atomizing chip includes a horizontally disposed piezoelectric substrate 22 and a liquid supply hole 23 formed in the piezoelectric substrate 22, the piezoelectric substrate 22 is a single crystal 127.68 ° YX tangential lithium niobate (LiNbO 3) piezoelectric substrate, a plurality of liquid supply holes 23 may be formed in the center of the piezoelectric substrate 22 for supplying liquid droplets, and a functional material liquid is injected from the bottom of the liquid supply hole 23 and forms liquid droplets on the surface of the piezoelectric substrate 22. Because the propagation speed of the surface acoustic wave on the piezoelectric substrate 22 is different from the propagation speed on the liquid drop, the diffraction angle from the energy diffraction of the surface acoustic wave to the liquid drop is theta, a plurality of interdigital metal electrodes 24 are distributed around the liquid supply hole 23 in an annular array manner, and the interdigital metal electrodes 24 distributed in the annular array manner can offset the diffraction angle theta, so that the initial motion direction of the fogdrop is along the axis of the piezoelectric substrate 22; meanwhile, compared with a single interdigital metal electrode 24, the plurality of interdigital metal electrodes 24 achieve better atomization effect under the condition that the amplitude and frequency of converted surface acoustic waves are the same, mainly because the interdigital metal electrodes 24 convert electric signals into the surface acoustic waves, the surface acoustic waves are superposed at the middle point of the annular interdigital metal electrode 24 array to increase the amplitude, the atomization efficiency is improved, and the atomization size is smaller. For simplifying the description, the embodiment is described by taking an example that two interdigital metal electrodes 24 surround one liquid supply hole 23, after the surface of the piezoelectric substrate 22 is polished, the interdigital metal electrodes 24 with the function of converting an electric signal into a surface acoustic wave are prepared on the piezoelectric substrate 22 by adopting the processes of photoetching and the like, the two interdigital metal electrodes 24 are oppositely distributed on two sides of the liquid supply hole 23, furthermore, the side wall of the tank body 12 is also provided with a small hole 16, the small hole 16 is used for inputting the electric signal, the working state of the piezoelectric substrate 22 is controlled by inserting a signal line, liquid drops are atomized by the surface acoustic wave and then are emitted from the piezoelectric substrate 22 to enter the mist sorting component 1, and only small mist drops can enter the mixing cavity 102.
The venturi tube 4 is installed in the mixing chamber 102, as shown in fig. 7-8, the venturi tube 4 includes a vertical tube cavity 40 and a carrier gas 94 inlet 401 located at the top of the vertical tube cavity 40, specifically, the venturi tube 4 includes an air injection section 41 and a venturi tube section 42 which are distributed up and down, the air injection section 41 is formed by coaxially and integrally forming an upper locking disc 411 and a lower air inlet pipe 412, the vertical tube cavity 40 penetrates through the locking disc 411 and the air inlet pipe 412 from the top to the bottom of the center, the inner diameter of the lower section of the air inlet pipe 412 is gradually reduced, a mounting hole matched with the outer diameter of the air inlet pipe 412 is formed in the cover 13, the air inlet pipe 412 of the air injection section 41 is inserted into the mounting hole, and the locking disc 411 is pressed on the upper surface of the cover 13. The venturi tube section 42 is formed by coaxially and integrally forming three sections, namely an installation seat 421, a middle tube section 422 and an air outlet tube 423, from top to bottom, the venturi tube section 42 is fixedly installed on the cover body 13 through the installation seat 421, the upper surface of the installation seat 421 is tightly attached to the lower surface of the cover body 13, and bolts penetrate through the locking disc 411 and the cover body 13 and then are locked on the installation seat 421. The bottom surface of the groove body 12 is provided with a lower mounting hole matched with the outer diameter of the air outlet pipe 423, and when the cover body 13 is covered on the groove body 12, the air outlet pipe 423 directly penetrates through the lower mounting hole and is fixedly connected with the aerosol jet printing head 3 outside the cuboid body. The middle section of the vertical tube cavity 40 is contracted to form a neck section 403, the neck section 403 divides the vertical tube cavity 40 into an upper tube 402 and a lower tube 404, the side wall of the upper tube 402 is provided with a mist inlet 43, in this embodiment, the mist inlet 43 is arranged on the mounting seat 421, the lower end opening of the air inlet tube 412 is equal to the height of the mist inlet 43, and the lower end opening of the lower tube 404 (i.e., the lower end opening of the air outlet tube 423) is communicated with the aerosol supply channel 30.
The lower end opening of the outlet pipe 423 of the Venturi tube 4 is connected with the aerosol jet printing head 3, and the Venturi tube 4 and the aerosol jet printing head can be connected through threads. As shown in fig. 2, 7, 10, the aerosol focusing member forms a first sheath air chamber 301 for providing a focusing sheath air and a second sheath air chamber 302 for providing a shielding sheath air around the aerosol supply passage 30. Specifically, the aerosol jet head 3 includes an aerosol inlet 31, an aerosol focusing member 32, a nozzle 33 and a glue-discharging protective shell 34 which are coaxially installed from top to bottom, and the aerosol supply channel 30 penetrates the aerosol jet head 3 from top to bottom. The aerosol supply channel 30 comprises a glue inlet section 303 which vertically penetrates through the aerosol inlet piece 31 and a rectification section 304 which vertically penetrates through the aerosol focusing piece 32, wherein the glue inlet section 303 is positioned at the upstream of the rectification section 304, and the inner diameter of the glue inlet section 303 is smaller than that of the rectification section 304.
Still cup jointed the shower nozzle lid 35 on the aerosol inlet 31, the shower nozzle lid 35 passes through the bolt lid with play gluey protective housing 34 and connects the locking to constitute aerosol shower nozzle head shell, the shower nozzle lid 35, aerosol focusing member 32 and aerosol inlet 31 enclose jointly and form annular first sheath air cavity 301, first sheath gas inlet port 351 has been seted up on the shower nozzle lid 35 lateral wall, be equipped with two relative first sheath gas inlet ports 351 in this embodiment, first sheath gas inlet port 351 UNICOM air compression equipment provides the focusing sheath gas for aerosol supply channel 30. First sheath air cavity 301 is through the first intake duct 305 UNICOM rectification section 304 of an inverted cone, first intake duct 305 is that aerosol inlet member 31 and aerosol focus 32 clearance fit form, first intake duct 305 is opened between advancing gluey section 303 and rectification section 304 and is equipped with annular first gas outlet 3051, first gas outlet 3051 UNICOM aerosol supply channel 30 of first sheath air cavity 301, form annular sheath gas through first gas outlet 3051 after the focusing sheath gas, rectification section 304 lower extreme internal diameter reduces gradually and forms out gluey section 306, in rectification section 304, aerosol can focus gradually the shrink under annular sheath gas effect, and form dense aerosol and get into out gluey section 306.
The downstream end of the aerosol supply channel 30 is provided with a nozzle 33, i.e. the lower end of the glue outlet section 306 is provided with the nozzle 33, and the nozzle 33 is provided with a glue outlet 307. Specifically, the lower opening of the aerosol focusing element 32 is inserted with a nozzle connecting element 36, the nozzle connecting element 36 is hollow, the hollow part is the glue outlet section 306, the nozzle 33 comprises an inverted cone-shaped head 331 positioned in the hollow lower section and a mounting head 332 positioned in the hollow upper section, and the mounting head 332 is fixedly connected to the lower opening of the nozzle connecting element 36 through a threaded connection. After the nozzle connecting piece 36 is inserted into the aerosol focusing piece 32, a positioning piece 37 is sleeved at the lower end of the aerosol focusing piece 32 from bottom to top and locks the nozzle connecting piece 36 and the aerosol focusing piece 32, the positioning piece 37 and the aerosol focusing piece 32 can be connected by threads, a glue outlet 307 is arranged at the lower end of a cone head 331, the cone head 331 is sleeved with the glue outlet protective shell 34, the positioning piece 37, the aerosol focusing piece 32 and the glue outlet protective shell 34 jointly enclose an annular second sheath air cavity 302, a second sheath air inlet 341 is formed in the side wall of the glue outlet protective shell 34, and the second sheath air inlet 341 is communicated with an air compression device to provide protective sheath air for the nozzle 33. An inverted cone-shaped protection through hole 342 is formed in the center of the aerosol protection shell 34, the cone 331 extends downwards out of the protection through hole 342, a second air inlet channel 308 is formed between an inner conical surface of the protection through hole 342 and a conical surface of the cone 331, the second air inlet channel 308 is communicated with the second sheath air cavity 302, a second air outlet 3081 of the second air inlet channel 308 is formed between a lower opening of the protection through hole 342 and the conical surface of the cone 331, the second air outlet 3081 is also annular, the second air outlet 3081 of the second sheath air cavity 302 is aligned with the nozzle 33, when dense aerosol is ejected from the aerosol outlet 307, annular sheath air is formed after the protective sheath air passes through the second air outlet 3081, the protective sheath air acts on the surface of the ejected aerosol, the effect of restraining the divergence of the dense aerosol after ejection is achieved, and meanwhile, the influence of the backflow of the aerosol outlet 307 of the nozzle 33 on the nozzle 33 can be reduced.
When the device is applied, the aerosol jet printing method is realized by the following steps:
as shown in fig. 1-10, in step one, droplets 90 are atomized to form a mist 91, which, in particular, the liquid drop 90 to be atomized is formed on the piezoelectric substrate 22, the liquid drop 90 is atomized by adopting the interdigital metal electrode 24 which surrounds the liquid drop 90 in an array, an electric signal applies alternating electric signal excitation to the first interdigital metal electrode 241 on the piezoelectric substrate 22 through a signal line passing through the small hole 16 on the side wall of the tank body 12, the interdigital metal electrode 24 can generate a surface acoustic wave 92 which propagates along the surface of the substrate, the surface acoustic wave 92 is received by the opposite second interdigital metal electrode 242 after passing through the liquid drop 90 and is converted into an electric signal for output, since the surface acoustic wave 92 forms a surface tension wave 93 on the surface of the droplet 90, when the surface tension effect of the surface acoustic wave 92 on the droplet 90 breaks through the restriction of the surface adhesive force of the droplet 90, the droplet 90 starts to atomize, and the process of atomizing the droplet 90 based on the surface acoustic wave 92 is completed.
And step two, sorting the fog drops 91 to obtain small-particle-size fog drops 91 with the same size, specifically, the fog drops 91 with different sizes are distributed in a layered mode based on the particle sizes due to the fact that the gravity and the buoyancy difference of the fog drops 91 with different sizes are different, the fog drops 91 with different sizes are sorted by utilizing the difference of the gravity of the fog drops 91, the fog drops 91 with the large particle sizes with lower heights are settled and recovered, and the small-particle-size fog drops 91 float into the space where the Venturi tube 4 is installed higher than the partition plate 11 for sorting the fog drops 91.
And step three, the venturi tube 4 is used for sucking the small-particle fog drops 91 and mixing the small-particle fog drops with the carrier gas 94 to form aerosol 95, specifically, the venturi tube 4 is vertically arranged, the carrier gas inlet 401 is formed in the upper end of the venturi tube 4, the carrier gas 94 enters the venturi tube 4 from the carrier gas inlet 401, the fog drop inlet 43 is formed in the side wall of the venturi tube 4, the carrier gas 94 rapidly passes through the venturi tube 4 to enable the inside of the venturi tube 4 to form negative pressure, and then the small-particle-diameter fog drops 91 obtained through sorting in the step two are sucked into the venturi tube 4 from the fog drop inlet 43 and are mixed with the carrier gas 94 to form aerosol 95.
And step four, introducing the focusing sheath gas 96 around the aerosol 95 to enable the aerosol to shrink to form the dense aerosol bundle 97, specifically, forming the annular focusing sheath gas 96 around the aerosol 95 based on the first inverse conical air inlet 305 and the annular first air outlet 3051, and enabling the focusing sheath gas 96 to act on the aerosol 95 to enable the aerosol to focus and shrink to form the dense aerosol bundle 97.
And a fifth step of introducing the protective sheath gas 98 around the dense air-soluble particles 97 from the nozzle 33 to suppress the divergence of the dense air-soluble particles 97 after leaving the nozzle 33, specifically, forming the annular protective sheath gas 98 around the dense air-soluble particles 97 emitted from the nozzle 33 by the inverted conical second air inlet 308 and the annular second air outlet 3081, and allowing the protective sheath gas 98 to act around the dense air-soluble particles 97 to suppress the divergence of the dense air-soluble particles 97 after leaving the nozzle 33.
The above-mentioned embodiments are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and do not limit the technical scope of the present invention, so that the changes and modifications made by the claims and the specification of the present invention should fall within the scope of the present invention.