A low‐temperature sintering mechanism of silver microparticles is established and used to enable the design‐for‐recycling of printed electronics. The formation of necks during the initial phase sintering of precipitated and atomized silver microparticles is studied. Temperature‐ and time‐dependent in‐situ analyses indicate the existence of a mobile silver species that provides efficient mass transport. The activation energy of neck formation identifies silver ion formation as the rate‐limiting step of low‐temperature silver sintering. It is demonstrated that resistivities of 271 times that of bulk silver can be attained after 40 minutes at 150°C. Low‐temperature sintering not only reduces the energy required during thermal treatment but it yields layers that are suitable for recycling, too. The resulting layers have conductive necks that are mechanically weak enough to be broken during recycling. Printed layers are redispersed and the recycled silver powder is reused without loss of the electrical performance in new prints. Their conductivities are industrially relevant, which makes this recyclability‐by‐design approach promising for manufacturing more sustainable printed electronics.

中文翻译：

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通过银微粒的低温烧结实现印刷电子产品的可回收性


建立了银微粒的低温烧结机制，并用于实现印刷电子产品的回收设计。研究了沉淀和雾化银微粒在初始阶段烧结过程中颈部的形成。与温度和时间相关的原位分析表明，存在一种可提供高效质量传输的移动银物质。颈部形成的活化能将银离子形成确定为低温银烧结的限速步骤。结果表明，在 150°C 下放置 40 分钟后，电阻率可以达到块银的 271 倍。 低温烧结不仅减少了热处理过程中所需的能量，而且还产生了适合回收的层。由此产生的层具有导电颈，这些导电颈在机械上足够脆弱，可以在回收过程中断裂。打印层被重新分散，回收的银粉被重新使用，而不会损失新打印件的电气性能。它们的导电性与工业相关，这使得这种通过设计实现可回收性的方法有望制造更可持续的印刷电子产品。