Properties of silver chloride and carbon screen printed patterns on different textiles

Smart textiles, known also as e-textiles, are of great interest for the development of healthcare and wellness applications that require the embedding of electronic devices into the fabrics. Although many prototype proposals may be found in the literature, the generalization and commercialization of e-textiles is limited by the lack of cost-effective, standard fabrication processes that can be applied to a large variety of fabrics. In this contribution, we analyze the deposition of silver and carbon pastes by screen printing methods on a wide selection of daily-use textiles, to gain insight into the main features to be considered when developing cost-effective smart textiles. Results show the prospects offered by screen printing to create conductive patterns over textile and flexible materials with sheet resistances lower than 1 Ω/sq and a good repeatability in the dimensions of the patterns.