Conductive silver paste based on smooth ultrathin flake silver powder and preparation method thereof
Technical Field
The invention belongs to a silver powder preparation technology, and particularly relates to a conductive silver paste based on smooth ultrathin flake silver powder and a preparation method thereof.
Background
The conversion rate is the most key index for evaluating the solar cell, the higher the conversion rate is, the better the conversion rate is, the conductive silver paste is the key raw material of the solar cell, and the conversion efficiency of the cell piece is obviously improved.
Conductive silver paste refers simply to silver paste printed on a printed material so that the silver paste has the capability of conducting current and eliminating accumulated static charges, and is generally printed on non-conductive printed materials such as plastics, glass, ceramics, paperboards and the like. The conductive silver paste consists of conductive phase silver powder, an adhesive, a solvent and a trace additive for improving performance, and compared with non-flaky silver powder, the flaky silver powder has a unique two-dimensional structure, so that the flaky silver powder has a larger specific surface area, and surface contact can be formed in the conductive paste, so that stronger conductive capability is obtained. Most of the flake silver powder on the market is prepared by a ball milling method, the preparation method consumes larger capacity and has complicated process procedures, the obtained flake silver has more defects on the surface, is easy to oxidize, and the thickness is difficult to reduce to be less than 100 nanometers, so that the application of the flake silver powder is difficult to meet the market demand of high-speed development, while the flake silver powder prepared by the reported chemical method is mostly irregular-shaped flake silver, and the thickness and the flake diameter are difficult to control. In view of the above, it is desirable to provide a method for preparing ultra-flaky silver powder with smooth surface, so as to overcome the defects in the prior art, that is, the uncontrollable property of the prior art, and the obtained silver powder has too large sheet diameter and non-uniform morphology, and cannot be well applied to the current high-precision printing equipment.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention discloses a conductive silver paste, which is prepared by preparing a certain amount of nano-sheet silver seed crystal solution, mixing the seed crystal solution with a reducing solution, adding an oxidation mixed solution to grow to obtain ultrathin flaky silver powder with a smooth surface, and preparing the conductive silver paste based on the ultrathin flaky silver powder together with a conventional organic carrier and glass powder.
The invention discloses a conductive silver paste based on smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder, which comprises the following steps:
(1) mixing silver salt solution, surfactant and oriented nucleating agent, and adding oxidation initiator; then adding a reducing agent A, and reacting to obtain a nano seed crystal solution;
(2) then mixing the nano crystal seed solution with a reducing agent B and a morphology regulator to obtain a mixed reduction solution; then adding a solution containing silver salt solution and a growth control agent into the mixed reduction solution, and reacting to obtain ultrathin flaky silver powder with a smooth surface;
(3) and mixing the ultrathin flaky silver powder with the smooth surface, the glass powder and the organic carrier to obtain the conductive silver paste based on the smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder.
The ultrathin flaky silver powder with a smooth surface has a regular shape, the diameter of the flake is 1-5 mu m, and the thickness of the flake is 10-50 nm.
In the invention, in the step (1), silver salt is silver nitrate, surfactant is ethylene glycol, polyethylene glycol, polyvinyl alcohol or polyvinylpyrrolidone, oriented nucleating agent is one or more of acetic acid, oxalic acid, malonic acid, succinic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid and isocitric acid, oxidation initiator is hydrogen peroxide with concentration of 30 wt.%, and reducing agent A is one of sodium borohydride, hydrazine hydrate and sodium ascorbate; in the silver salt solution, the concentration of silver salt is 0.05-0.5 mmol/L; the concentration of the surfactant is 0.1 wt.% to 1 wt.%; the concentration of the oriented nucleating agent is 0.75-10 mmol/L, and the solvent in the silver salt solution is used as a base number; the molar ratio of the oxidation initiator to the silver salt is 50-200: 1, and the molar ratio of the reducing agent A to the silver salt is 10-30: 1.
In the invention, in the step (2), the reducing agent B is one of ascorbic acid, glucose and hydrazine hydrate, the morphology regulator is one of polyethylene glycol, polyvinyl alcohol or polyvinylpyrrolidone, and the growth control agent is one of citric acid, isocitric acid, ammonia water and disodium ethylenediamine tetraacetate; the concentration of the nano crystal seed solution is 0.1-1 g/L, the concentration of the reducing agent B is 0.05-1 mol/L, and the concentration of the morphology regulator is 0.05-0.5 wt%; in the silver salt solution, the concentration of silver salt is 0.1-0.4 mol/L; the concentration of the growth control agent is 0.02-0.2 mol/L.
In the invention, the reaction temperature of the step (1) is 20-60 ℃, and the reaction temperature of the step (2) is 0-60 ℃.
In the present invention, the reaction time after mixing the reaction solutions in the step (1) is 30min, and the reaction time after mixing the reaction solutions in the step (2) is 60 min.
According to the invention, the glass powder and the organic carrier are conventional products which are commercially available in the field, for example, the organic carrier comprises a solvent, a thixotropic agent, a plasticizer, a leveling agent, a thickening agent and the like, and for example, dibutyl phthalate, BYK-378 leveling agent, polyamide wax, Tween 80, 2, 4-trimethyl-1, 3-pentanediol monoisobutyrate, dimethyl adipate and acrylate are mixed to prepare the organic carrier.
The method solves the problems of uncontrollable process, overlarge diameter of the obtained silver powder, uneven appearance and the like in the existing preparation method of the flake silver powder, and the silver powder obtained by reduction has controllable diameter, very thin thickness, smooth surface of the silver powder, simple and quick synthesis process, simple and convenient post-treatment, low equipment cost and contribution to industrial production. The metal silver powder is the main component of the conductive silver paste, the conductive property of the metal silver powder is mainly realized by the silver powder, and the content of the silver powder in the paste directly influences the conductive property; the silver is a noble metal and is easy to reduce to return to a simple substance state, the size and the shape of the silver particles are closely related to the conductivity of the silver paste, the flaky particles are superior when used for manufacturing the conductive printing material, the round particles are in point contact with each other, the flaky particles can form surface-to-surface contact, and the flaky particles are mutually overlapped in a fish scale shape after being printed, so that the better conductivity is displayed.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is an SEM photograph of smooth, ultra-thin flake silver powders of examples two surfaces.
FIG. 2 is an SEM photograph of five-surface smooth ultra-thin flake silver powders of example.
FIG. 3 is an SEM photograph of the silver powder obtained in comparative example.
FIG. 4 is an SEM photograph of the silver powder obtained in comparative example.
Detailed Description
The invention discloses a preparation method of conductive silver paste based on smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder, which comprises the following steps of (1) mixing silver salt solution, surfactant and directional nucleating agent to obtain mixed solution; then adding an oxidation initiator; then adding a reducing agent A, and reacting to obtain a nano seed crystal solution; (2) then mixing the nano crystal seed solution with a reducing agent B and a morphology regulator to obtain a mixed reduction solution; then adding a solution containing silver salt solution and a growth control agent into the mixed reduction solution, and reacting to obtain ultrathin flaky silver powder with a smooth surface; (3) and mixing the ultrathin flaky silver powder with the smooth surface, the glass powder and the organic carrier to obtain the conductive silver paste based on the smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder. The raw materials of the invention are all commercial products, and the related experimental methods, including test methods, are all conventional methods in the field.
Smooth ultra-flaky silver powder preparation example
TABLE 1 examples and comparative component formulations
In the step (1), the concentration of the surfactant and the concentration of the oriented nucleating agent are calculated by taking water in the silver nitrate aqueous solution as a base number; concentrating or diluting the nano seed crystal solution obtained in the step (1) to obtain the nano seed crystal solution with the concentration required in the step (2); in the step (2), the concentration of the reducing agent B and the concentration of the morphology regulator are calculated by taking the solvent in the nano-crystal seed solution as a reference, the concentration of the growth control agent is calculated by taking water in the silver nitrate aqueous solution as a base, and the volume of the oxidation solution is 9 times of that of the nano-crystal seed solution.
The preparation method of the ultrathin flake silver powder with smooth surface comprises the following steps:
step (1), preparation of a nano-sheet silver seed crystal solution: according to the concentration shown in the table 1, a silver nitrate aqueous solution (silver nitrate concentration is 0.05-0.5 mmol/L), a surfactant and an oriented nucleating agent are mixed to obtain a mixed solution, hydrogen peroxide (30 wt.%) is added into the mixed solution to serve as an initiator, and a reducing agent A is added into the mixed solution to react for 30 minutes to obtain a nano seed crystal solution.
Step (2), growth of the nano-sheet silver seed crystal: according to the concentration shown in the table 1, mixing a nano crystal seed solution, a reducing agent B and a morphology regulator to obtain a mixed reduction solution, adding an oxidation solution (the dosage is 9 times of the volume of the nano crystal seed solution) consisting of a growth control agent and a silver nitrate aqueous solution (the silver nitrate concentration is 0.1-0.4 mmol/L) into the mixed reduction solution, reacting for 60 minutes to allow the nano-sheet silver crystal seed to grow, filtering the reaction solution after the reaction is finished, washing the filter cake with deionized water, and drying to obtain the ultrathin flaky silver powder, wherein the morphology and the size are shown in the table 1, fig. 1 is an SEM image of the ultrathin flaky silver powder with the smooth surface in the second embodiment, and fig. 2 is an SEM image of the ultrathin flaky silver powder with the.
The invention solves the problems of uncontrollable process, overlarge diameter of the obtained silver powder sheet, uneven appearance and the like in the existing preparation method of the flake silver powder, the prepared silver powder sheet has controllable diameter, very thin thickness and smooth surface of the silver powder, and the silver powder prepared by the invention has very uniform appearance and no spherical particles and the flake silver powder accounts for over 99 percent through electron microscope tests.
The prior art considers that the flaky silver powder can be obtained with high yield under the condition of strong acidity (pH is 0-3), in the invention, the pH of a system for growing the nano-sheet silver seed crystal is about 5, the prepared silver powder has a uniform flaky structure, the yield is over 99 percent, and particularly, the thickness of the silver sheet reaches dozens of nanometers, which is far lower than that of the prior art, and unexpected technical effects are obtained.
Comparative example 1
(1) And (3) adding the surfactant, the oriented nucleating agent, hydrogen peroxide and the reducing agent A into water according to the concentration of the second embodiment, and stirring at 40 ℃ to obtain a solution.
(2) According to the concentration of the second embodiment, the solution obtained in the step (1) is mixed with a reducing agent B and a morphology regulator to obtain a mixed reduction solution, a growth control agent and a silver nitrate aqueous solution (which is an oxidation solution formed by adding the silver nitrate aqueous solution in the step (1) and the silver nitrate aqueous solution in the step (2)) are added into the mixed solution, the mixed solution is reacted at 40 ℃, after the reaction is finished, the reaction solution is filtered, and a filter cake is washed by deionized water and then dried to obtain the comparative silver powder, wherein the obtained comparative silver powder has a complex morphology, contains a large number of shapes which are considered to have poor performance in the field, such as spheres, cones and the like, and has a yield of 82.7%, and the silver powder is illustrated to aggregate and generate a coating, and is shown.
Comparative example No. two
According to the second embodiment, the surfactant is replaced by sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate, and the rest is unchanged, so that the obtained comparative silver powder has a complex shape, is an agglomerated slab, has a yield of 86.3%, and shows that the silver powder is agglomerated and generates a coating, and a SEM image of the silver powder in the comparative example is shown in FIG. 4.
Comparative example No. three
According to the second embodiment, the volume of the oxidation solution was changed to 9 times of the volume of the nanocrystal seed solution, and the rest was unchanged, so that the thickness of the obtained silver powder was large and exceeded 100nm, and the yield was 97.2%.
Conductive silver paste preparation example based on smooth ultra-flaky silver powder
The preparation method of the conductive silver paste comprises the following steps: mixing 20 parts by weight of dibutyl phthalate, 5 parts by weight of BYK-378 flatting agent, 1 part by weight of polyamide wax, 2 parts by weight of Tween 80, 45 parts by weight of 2,2, 4-trimethyl-1, 3-pentanediol monoisobutyrate, 25 parts by weight of dimethyl adipate and 10 parts by weight of acrylate, heating and stirring at 60 ℃ for 30min to prepare an organic carrier; according to the parts by weight, 1 part of glass powder with D50 of 1.0 mu m and Tg point of 300 ℃ is taken, and is uniformly dispersed with 4.26 parts of the prepared organic carrier on a dispersion machine, and then the mixture is rolled on a three-roller machine to the fineness of below 5 mu m, so as to prepare glass slurry; according to the parts by weight, 88 parts of the smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder with the smooth surface prepared in the preparation example of the smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder and 12 parts of the prepared glass slurry are uniformly dispersed on a dispersion machine, and then the mixture is rolled on a three-roll mill until the fineness is below 5 microns, so that the conductive silver paste based on the smooth ultrathin flaky silver powder, namely the conductive silver paste for the solar cell is obtained.
Printing conductive silver paste on a passivation layer on the front surface of a solar cell silicon wafer to form a main grid and a fine grid by a screen printing process by adopting a conventional method, drying and sintering in an infrared tunnel furnace, wherein the sintering peak temperature is 780 ℃, the time is 3s when the temperature is higher than 700 ℃, and the time is 7s when the temperature is higher than 600 ℃. And volatilizing the solvent in the slurry in a drying stage, decomposing and burning out other organic matters at a high-temperature stage, melting and hardening the glass powder and the silver powder in the slurry, burning through the passivation layer, forming good ohmic contact with the PN junction of the silicon wafer, and finally preparing and forming the solar cell. The prepared cell piece is subjected to a conventional electrical property test on an I/V tester, the short-circuit current of the example is obviously higher than that of the comparative example, the open voltage of the slurry is also slightly higher, and the final conversion rate is obviously higher than that of the comparative example (by taking a commercial silver slurry as a comparison).
TABLE 2 Performance data
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Example two
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EXAMPLE five
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Commercial silver paste
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Conversion rate%
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18.92
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18.89
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18.53 |
CN101569935A discloses a preparation method of flaky micron silver powder, wherein the silver powder prepared in the embodiment 2 is used for preparing conductive silver paste instead of the ultrathin flaky silver powder with smooth surface, the rest is unchanged, and the conversion rate is 18.67% through the same test.
The domestic silver conductive paste has a gap with imported products in the aspects of conductivity and paste stability, so that a considerable part of the conductive paste still depends on import, and the market benefit of domestic enterprises is reduced to a great extent. How to produce the conductive paste with good stability becomes the primary problem of producing the silver conductive paste by domestic enterprises, and the silver powder plays a key role in the formula material influencing the conductivity and stability of the paste. The method solves the problems of uncontrollable process, overlarge diameter of the obtained silver powder, uneven appearance and the like in the conventional preparation method of the flake silver powder, and the prepared silver powder has controllable diameter, very thin thickness and smooth surface, and can be found through electron microscope tests that the prepared silver powder has very uniform and consistent appearance, spherical particles are not seen, and the proportion of the flake silver powder is over 99%. And specific application experiments show that the silver powder has better conversion rate than the silver powder sold in the market and the silver powder prepared by the prior art.