Theimportance of nanowires has been steadily increasing in the development of variousnano-electronic devices, ranging from conductor inks used in electronic circuitmanufacturing to the production of touchscreens and infrared shields.Researchers at National Chemical Laboratory (NCL),Pune have developed an inexpensive technology for manufacturing of precisionsilver nanowires that can be used in future nano-electronic devices. 

 

Dr.Shekhar Mande, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR), inaugurated the pilot plant for continuous flow manufacture of silvernanowires at the NCL campus.

The pilot plant at CSIR-NCL can produce as much as 500 grams a day and is scalable to any desired production rates. The international market price of silver nanowires of different sizes (20 to 100 nanometer diameter) varies from Rs. 18,000 to Rs. 43,000 per gram. The silver nanowires produced from this technology are at least 12 times cheaper than the global rates. Also, the process can be adjusted to manufacture a wide range of nanowires suitable for a variety of applications.

“The method of this synthesis is known chemistry but it waspossible using different control parameters in the lab. The purpose was tocreate a technology that will compete to the world and get into the field ofelectrical chemicals” said Dr.Amol Kulkarni, lead researcher at Chemical Engineering and Process DevelopmentDivision, NCL.

India has been importing silver nanowiresfor all its needs. The technology will help manufacturing of precision materialin large scale. Patents have been filed to protect the technology and theproduct has been tested for various applications including conducting inks invarious forms. 

Dr. Mande said, “The global market forthe silver nanowires is very large. There are ample opportunities for thenanowire manufacturers as there are very few producers in this sector. Thisinitiative of CSIR will proactively enter in this large space of long-termrelevance”.

 

This technology development was carried out under the AdvancedManufacturing Technologies (AMT) initiative by the Department of Science andTechnology (DST).

(IndiaScience Wire)

 

 

 

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