Use of electrospun fiber membrane as the screen printing stencil for high definition printing

Conventional screen stencils are known for having micron scale screen mesh, which restricts definition of the printed pattern, and subsequently, the development of fine line screen printing technology. In contrast, electrospun fiber membranes are characterized by a consistent mesh size, which have the ability to reduce down to hundreds of nanometers. In this study, we produced a screen stencil by combining electrospun PVA/EG fiber membrane with a commercial printing screen stencil. The fiber diameter, porosity, hydrophilicity, and thickness of the PVA/EG fiber membrane were controlled by the ethylene glycol content, crosslinking time, and spinning time. The effects of membrane?s morphology and structure on image definition of printed pattern were investigated. Results showed that the printed pattern depicted the higher definition when the electrospun fiber membrane had the higher porosity (83.67%), smaller fiber diameter (0.1859 ?m) and uniform diameter distribution. With respect to hydrophilicity and thickness of membrane, both had stronger influence on the flux of printed paste, the better hydrophilicity and lower thickness membrane were, the darker color and higher definition images obtained.