A tool for identifying green solvents for printed electronics

The emerging field of printed electronics uses large amounts of printing and coating solvents during fabrication, which commonly are deposited and evaporated within spaces available to workers. It is in this context unfortunate that many of the currently employed solvents are non-desirable from health, safety, or environmental perspectives. Here, we address this issue through the development of a tool for the straightforward identification of functional and green replacement solvents. In short, the tool organizes a large set of solvents according to their Hansen solubility parameters, ink properties, and sustainability descriptors, and through systematic iteration delivers suggestions for green alternative solvents with similar dissolution capacity as the current non-sustainable solvent. We exemplify the merit of the tool in a case study on a multi-solute ink for high-performance light-emitting electrochemical cells, where a non-desired solvent was successfully replaced by two benign alternatives. The green-solvent selection tool is freely available at: www.opeg-umu.se/green-solvent-tool. For printed electronics to realize its potential as a sustainable ubiquitous technology, eco-friendly solvents that deliver excellent ink performance must be found. Here, the authors report a free online tool that identifies functional green solvents for solution-processed printed electronics.

Automated summary

A tool has been developed to identify functional green solvents for solution-processed printed electronics, organizing solvents based on Hansen solubility parameters, ink properties, and sustainability descriptors to provide suggestions for green alternative solvents with similar dissolution capacity as current non-sustainable solvents. The tool has been successfully used in a case study to replace a non-desired solvent with two benign alternatives, and is freely available online to support the development of a sustainable ubiquitous technology in the field of printed electronics.