A general finite-gel strategy for highly concentrated liquid metal inks.

IF 15.7 1区综合性期刊 Q1 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES

Nature Communications Pub Date : 2025-10-16 DOI:10.1038/s41467-025-63433-y

Ruiyu Ma, Lichuan Jia, Zhiguang Guo, Jie Lin, Mengxin Liu, Zhixing Wang, Guilin Song, Dingxiang Yan, Zhongming Li

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Producing high-concentration liquid metal (LM) inks is highly desirable for next-generation flexible electronics, and yet remains a dulling challenging due to the large surface tension and high density of LM droplets. Herein, a general finite-gel strategy is proposed to enable the fabrication of high-concentration liquid metal (LM) inks. In the LM-based inks, the LM droplets are confined in the relaxed finite-gel networks, which provide strong repulsive effects to avoid the reunition of the adjacent LM droplets. The unique structure imparts the LM-based inks with a good colloidal stability even at a very high LM concentration of 30,000.0 g/L. The LM-based inks also present tunable rheological behavior and are suitable for various processing technologies. Moreover, the proposed finite-gel strategy is scalable, and could be expanded to various cryogel systems (e.g., curdlan, gelatin, and gellan gum). This work takes a crucial step forward to producing highly concentrated LM-based inks for flexible electronics.

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用于高浓度液态金属油墨的一般有限凝胶策略。

生产高浓度液态金属（LM）墨水对于下一代柔性电子产品是非常理想的，但由于大表面张力和高密度的LM液滴，仍然是一个钝化的挑战。本文提出了一种通用的有限凝胶策略，使高浓度液态金属（LM）油墨的制造成为可能。在LM基油墨中，LM液滴被限制在松弛的有限凝胶网络中，该网络提供了强大的排斥效应，以避免相邻LM液滴的碰撞。这种独特的结构使得LM基油墨即使在非常高的LM浓度（30,000 0.0 g/L）下也具有良好的胶体稳定性。lm基油墨还具有可调的流变特性，适合各种加工技术。此外，提出的有限凝胶策略是可扩展的，可以扩展到各种低温凝胶系统（例如，凝乳，明胶和结冷胶）。这项工作为生产用于柔性电子产品的高浓度lm基油墨迈出了关键的一步。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Nature Communications Biological Science Disciplines-

CiteScore

24.90

自引率

2.40%

发文量

6928

审稿时长

3.7 months

期刊介绍： Nature Communications, an open-access journal, publishes high-quality research spanning all areas of the natural sciences. Papers featured in the journal showcase significant advances relevant to specialists in each respective field. With a 2-year impact factor of 16.6 (2022) and a median time of 8 days from submission to the first editorial decision, Nature Communications is committed to rapid dissemination of research findings. As a multidisciplinary journal, it welcomes contributions from biological, health, physical, chemical, Earth, social, mathematical, applied, and engineering sciences, aiming to highlight important breakthroughs within each domain.