Electrically Conductive Adhesives with Low Ag Content Prepared by Ag Self-Activated Plating and PEDOT:PSS

Silver-plated graphite powder, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiolphene): poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), and organic additives were employed to reduce the electrical resistivities of epoxy-based adhesives. A novel silver self-activated electroless deposition using conductive graphite particles as filler in electrically conductive adhesives (ECAs) was investigated to develop high-performance ECAs with low silver content. Adding silver-plated graphite powders to the conductive adhesives reduced their electrical resistivities by at least two orders of magnitude compared with those filled with graphite powders only. The silver content of the adhesive with PEDOT: PSS decreased to 24.7 wt%, and its resistivity was 1.2 x 10(-3) Omega cm. The best electrical resistivity of the epoxy-based conductive adhesives with 70 wt% silver-plated graphite powders was 4.36 x 10(-4) Omega cm. The weight percentage of silver in this epoxy-based adhesive decreased to 43.3 wt%, which is much lower than that of conventional silver conductive adhesives. (C) The Author(s) 2014. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: oa@electrochem.org. All rights reserved.