A study of the functionality of conventional pigmented inks in furnishing
electrical conductivity to textiles

Electronic textiles technologies are finding widespread use in numerous sectors of our daily lives. One of the main
enabling technologies for e-textiles is the additive deposition of functional material. The functional coatings that are used
for such applications are based on a variety of materials such as conductive polymers, carbon-based materials, metals
etc. There are several limitations associated generally with the commercially available conductive inks for non-textile
substrates. The major limitations include (but are not limited to) high cost, inferior performance in terms of washing and
creasing and difficulty in application, etc. In this study, we have evaluated two commercially available conductive inks
and compared their washing and creasing performance with a conventional pigment printing system