Screen printed silver patterns on functionalised aramid fabric

In this work, a simple and low cost method based on screen printing is presented to synthesize a conductive silver pattern on aramid fabric. The aramid fiber was treated with (3-mercaptopropyl)-trimethoxysilane to introduce a tail mercapto group promoting the ordered binding of silver nanoparticles. SEM and AFM images indicated a uniform distribution of silver nanoparticles on fiber surface. FTIR and XRD patterns confirmed the silver layer on the fibers. Furthermore, the electrical property of conductive fiber was characterized by conductive AFM and a digital multimeter, the surface resistance of conductive fabric was as low as 0.20 Omega/cm. And single fiber tensile test indicated that the mild treating process has no significant influence on the mechanical properties of the fiber.