A general finite-gel strategy for highly concentrated liquid metal inks

Ruiyu Ma, Lichuan Jia (), Zhiguang Guo, Jie Lin, Mengxin Liu, Zhixing Wang, Guilin Song, Dingxiang Yan () and Zhongming Li ()
Additional contact information
Ruiyu Ma: Sichuan University
Lichuan Jia: Sichuan University
Zhiguang Guo: Sichuan University
Jie Lin: Sichuan University
Mengxin Liu: Sichuan University
Zhixing Wang: Sichuan University
Guilin Song: Sichuan University
Dingxiang Yan: Sichuan University
Zhongming Li: Sichuan University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Producing high-concentration liquid metal (LM) inks is highly desirable for next-generation flexible electronics, and yet remains a dulling challenging due to the large surface tension and high density of LM droplets. Herein, a general finite-gel strategy is proposed to enable the fabrication of high-concentration liquid metal (LM) inks. In the LM-based inks, the LM droplets are confined in the relaxed finite-gel networks, which provide strong repulsive effects to avoid the reunition of the adjacent LM droplets. The unique structure imparts the LM-based inks with a good colloidal stability even at a very high LM concentration of 30,000.0 g/L. The LM-based inks also present tunable rheological behavior and are suitable for various processing technologies. Moreover, the proposed finite-gel strategy is scalable, and could be expanded to various cryogel systems (e.g., curdlan, gelatin, and gellan gum). This work takes a crucial step forward to producing highly concentrated LM-based inks for flexible electronics.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63433-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-63433-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63433-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().