Modelling the drying of ink-jet printed structures and experimental verification

This paper 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 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 varying solute diffusion coefficient is studied.