By cooperation with one of our Brazil customer, we had a chance to use a special type of printing ink: electrically conductive printing ink.
What is electrically conductive printing ink actually?
It is a pasty ink that mixed with con
ductive elements (gold, silver, copper and carbon), which can be used in printed circuit board. This type of print ink has been applied widely in industry such as printed circuit board, keyboard connecting point, printed resistors, etc.
Major types of conductive printing ink
Gold conductive printing ink
Chemically stable, good conducting performance, high price and only applied in thick film integrated circuits.
Silver conductive printing ink
Widely used in membrane switch manufacturing as conductive material. The silver powder can be spreaded in polyester resin to be made in pasty conductive ink.
Copper conductive printing ink
Relatively cheaper, but easy to be oxidized. So normally the copper power will have antioxidation treatment, therefore the circuits printed by this ink are with antioxidating feature.
Carbon conductive printing ink
Conducting tank black, acetylene black, furnace carbon black and graphite are used in carbaon conductive printing ink, usually used as membrane switch and printed resistors.
You are welcome to the datasheet of the conductive ink we are using to make PCBs.