Nano Ink Allows Simple Office Paper to Conduct Electricity
Decker Yeadon is back at it, inventing incredible materials with architectural applications. This time they’ve made simple office paper capable of conducting electricity with ink made out of nanoparticles. Their amazing discovery, which also works with cotton fabric, has the potential to revolutionize buildings, design, textiles and medical applications. The design firm recently demonstrated how they could power an LED bulb with a mere strip of the conductive office paper.
The New York design firm is known for coming up with innovative and novel applications for advanced materials, including nano materials and even architectural Buckypaper. For their latest project, they made a nano solution that they’re calling NanoINK, which consists of carbon nanotubes, deionized water, and a chemical surfactant that helps the nanotubes disperse in the water. The nanotubes are only 1.5 nm in diameter, which is smaller than a DNA molecule.
Then the ink was applied to a number of different surfaces, including regular office paper (Decker Yeadon letterhead), cotton fabric and cotton pads, resulting in the areas with ink having electrical properties. First they tested each material with a voltage meter to see if the paper or cotton was conductive, which the video clearly shows to be the case. Afterwards the tester also showed how a single strip of office paper coated in the NanoInk could conduct electricity from batteries to power an LED light.
Decker Yeadon’s discovery could have a wide range of applications from architecture to electronics, textiles, even medicine. If the ink could be controlled properly, it could even be applied by printers in a specific pattern to yield exact and predetermine electrical circuits.
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