Infrared oven
5 Jun 2014
A custom-built short wave, infrared oven from Heraeus Noblelight is being used by the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) of Sedgefield, Co Durham, to investigate, develop and evaluate conductive inks used in printable electronics.
The oven has been incorporated into CPI’s pilot scale plant facility, where it is used to provide in-line sintering and drying of nano and micro inks.
Speciality ink validation is an important facet of the work at the CPI and the Sedgefield facility is equipped with a range of assets specifically chosen and developed to allow clients to understand how their products and processes perform under pilot manufacturing conditions.
This resource includes a Nilpeter printing press, which has the capability to perform flexo, gravure, offset litho and rotary screen printing.
This equipment is used to trial and assess the micro and nano inks used in printed electronics.
Micro inks use micron-sized conductive silver flakes, while nano inks use nano-sized conductive silver spheres and both flakes and spheres are sintered when applied to a printing substrate to create the required circuitry.
The inks are carried by a solvent and applied to a web substrate before passing to a hot air oven, where the solvent is driven off.
The printed web is then conveyed to the infra-red oven where the coating is sintered. With some of the nano Conductive inks it is possible to achieve this drying and sintering in one step under the IR without the need for a hot air dryer.
The oven features a heater module, equipped with five high power short wave emitters, each of which is split into two separate 3.6kW legs.
To share the power evenly across the phases, only nine of the available ten legs are used and emitters can be selected in groups of three by means of a manual thyristor control so that the thermal output of the oven can be varied to meet requirements.
An air-cooled, highly polished, Heraeus quartzt reflective coating (QRC) nano reflector is installed underneath the web to help contain the IR energy and improve sintering efficiency and the heater module can be lifted clear of the supporting frame to provide access for webbing up.
For more information, please contact: +44 (0)151 353 2710, Email: ian.bartley@heraeus.com or visit: www.heraeus-infraredsolutions.co.uk
