Preparation of highly dispersible glass frit powders and its application in ink-jet printing ink

The dispersion of low surface polarity ultra-fine powders has been a technical bottle-neck in many industrial applications, including ceramic or glass decoration and solar electrodes. Herein, we report a surface modification method to improve the adsorption strength between the ultra-fine (300 nm) powder and dispersant by coating a layer of mesoporous silica on the surface of a glass frit. The modified ultra-fine glass frit shows a high density of polar surface functional groups which can increase the adsorption amount and strength between the modified powder and the dispersant, as confirmed by the adsorption experiment and IR analysis. The modified powder also was used to prepare ceramic ink which can be completely filtered under a 1 mu m sized pores filter, thus satisfying the requirement of industrial ink-jet printing.