Empower Materials
Close-up of a printed circuit board

Thick Film Paste

QPAC polyalkylene carbonate binders are critical to formulations for imparting cohesiveness, regulating viscosity, and improving structural integrity. The binders produce significantly lower residue after firing, providing improved thick-film product performance. They also decompose efficiently during short firing processes at relatively low temperatures. 

QPAC has been used for several years in thick film pastes that provide metallization for substrates such as Aluminum Nitride and Barium Titanate. It is an ideal binder system for Cu and Ni metallization, and its benefits have been demonstrated in multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC) and LTCC.

The QPAC binder systems have burn-out efficiency that is as good or better than that of other binder materials, such as ethyl cellulose. It can be formulated to provide the required viscosity characteristics, giving it a high resolution for screen-printing applications.

Clean-burning QPAC 40 polypropylene carbonate binder is also used to formulate front-side solar cell thick film pastes. The paste features are nearly identical to commercially available pastes in characteristics, such as solids loading, rheology, and fineness of the grind.

Key Benefits:

  • Viscosities and molecular weights can be custom-tailored for a specific solution or paste requirements
  • Both grades of QPAC are naturally “tacky,” and degrees of plasticity can be adjusted as necessary
  • Excellent green strength and adhesion to substrates
  • Decomposition is complete through three phases: solid, liquid, and vapor
  • Upon decomposition, QPAC leaves very low ash residue with the complete burnout of carbon.
  • Decomposes completely between 220°C – 350°C, which can be as much as 100°C below the decomposition temperatures of other binders
  • Excellent rheology properties and suspension stability

Applications include:

  • Solar Inks
  • Solar Pastes
  • Electrode Inks
  • Termination Inks
  • Nanoparticle Inks
  • Other Miscellaneous Inks

The Empower Materials technical support team can provide assistance with customer formulations.

Give us a call (302) 225-0100 or send us an email