Modeling the Drying of Ink-Jet-Printed Structures and Experimental Verification

This article presents a numerical model that was developed for the drying of ink-jet-printed polymer solutions after filling the pixels in a polymer LED display. The model extends earlier work presented in the literature while still maintaining a practical approach in limiting the number of input parameters needed. Despite some rigorous assumptions, the model is in fair agreement with experimental data from a pre-pilot ink-jet printing line. Comparison inside a single pixel is shown, as well as a general trend in which the amount of polymer that is transported out of the central part of the pixel decreases with the rate of viscosity increase as a function of polymer concentration. Moreover, the effect of a varying solute diffusion coefficient is studied.