The Spreading of Inkjet-Printed Droplets with Varying Polymer Molar Mass on a Dry Solid Substrate

✍ Scribed by Jolke Perelaer; Patrick J. Smith; Erwin van den Bosch; Stephen S. C. van Grootel; Peter H. J. M. Ketelaars; Ulrich S. Schubert

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 358 KB
• Volume: 210
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1022-1352
• DOI: 10.1002/macp.200800569

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

An experimental study on the spreading of inkjet printed droplets of a polystyrene/toluene solution with varied molar masses on solid dry surfaces is presented. The polymer's number‐averaged molar mass was varied between 1.5 and 545 kDa, which also caused a variation in the viscosity from 0.6 to 1.7 mPa · s. The results were compared with theoretical models for droplet spreading and were found to fit with an error between 2 and 20% with the predictions. Furthermore, the in‐flight evaporation of the free‐falling droplet was investigated for polystyrene/toluene solutions that have a constant vapor pressure by printing from a systematically increased height.

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