CN1511706A - Ink jet head cleaning device and method for organic electroluminescent panel ink jet process - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a cleaning device of ink-jet head in the ink-jet process of organic electroluminescent panel, which is used in cooperation with an ink-jet head and mainly comprises: an ink jet head placing groove for accommodating the ink jet head; a cleaning solution for cleaning the ink jet head; and an ultrasonic generator for providing the cleaning solution with enough energy to clean the ink jet head; wherein the ultrasonic generator is connected with the ink jet head placing groove. The invention also relates to a method for cleaning the ink jet head in the organic electroluminescent panel ink jet process, which is suitable for cleaning the ink jet head in the process of working or finishing the working.

Description

Inkjet Head Cleaning Device and Method for Inkjet Process of Organic Electroluminescence Panel

technical field

The present invention relates to an inkjet head cleaning device and method, especially to an inkjet head cleaning device and method suitable for the inkjet process of organic electroluminescent panels

Background technique

Organic electroluminescence element is a kind of element that utilizes the self-luminous characteristics of organic functional materials (organic functional materials) to achieve display effects. It can be divided into small molecule organic light-emitting elements (smallmolecule OLED, SM-OLED) and polymer light-emitting device (polymer light-emitting device, PLED) two categories.

Due to the rapid development of computer-related products, flat-panel displays have become the mainstream of current screen displays. On the other hand, organic electroluminescent diodes are a new trend in the development of flat-panel displays due to their simple structure, convenient manufacturing process, low driving potential, and no viewing angle limitation, and are conducive to the application of full-color displays. It is a single-layer structure element with conjugated polymer as organic thin film material. The main process technology is to coat the conjugated polymer material on the substrate by spin coating or ink jet printing. ; Among them, inkjet printing is the most suitable for large-scale and mass production, and it is one of the most important processes at present. Therefore, the quality control of the inkjet printing process is also a very important step in the manufacturing process of the OLED.

In the process of inkjet, if the ink contains impurities or large particles of suspended matter, it is easy to cause the nozzle of the inkjet head to be clogged, so that the ink droplets cannot be ejected, or the ink droplets are uneven, so that some pixels cannot be filled or not. rules, it is easy to cause defects in the light-emitting panel and reduce the life of the inkjet head. The existing solution is to flush with a large amount of ink or solvent, which wastes ink and increases the cost. Another method is to use a filter to filter out large suspended particles or impurities, but this method cannot prevent the ink from drying out and blocking the nozzles, and will still cause panel defects. Therefore, there is still a need for a new cleaning method in the inkjet process, which can effectively solve the nozzle clogging situation caused by large particle suspensions, and can prevent the nozzle ink from drying out, prolong the service life of the inkjet head, and increase the cost of the inkjet process. Yield; on the other hand, there is no need to flush out blockages with ink, thereby reducing production costs.

Because of this, the inventor, based on the spirit of active invention, desperately thought of a method that can solve the above problems: an inkjet head cleaning device and method in the inkjet manufacturing process of organic electroluminescent panels. After several researches and experiments, the invention was finally completed. .

Contents of the invention

The main purpose of the present invention is to provide an inkjet head cleaning device in the inkjet process of organic electroluminescent panels, so as to clean small-volume nozzles and reduce or avoid nozzle clogging caused by ink drying in the nozzles.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for cleaning the inkjet head in the inkjet process of the organic electroluminescent panel, which can reduce the amount of ink or organic solvent needed to clean the nozzle, improve the production yield, and save the production cost.

In order to achieve the above purpose, the present invention relates to an inkjet head cleaning device for an inkjet process of an organic electroluminescence panel, which is used in conjunction with an inkjet head, and mainly includes: an inkjet head placement groove to accommodate The inkjet head; a cleaning solution to clean the inkjet head; and an ultrasonic generator to provide the cleaning solution with sufficient energy to clean the inkjet head; wherein the ultrasonic generator is connected to the inkjet head placement tank link.

The present invention also relates to a method for cleaning an inkjet head used in the inkjet process of an organic electroluminescence panel, which is used in conjunction with an inkjet head, and mainly includes the following steps: first, provide an inkjet head placement groove, a cleaning solution, and an inkjet head cleaning device of an ultrasonic generator, wherein the ultrasonic generator is connected with the inkjet head placement groove; afterward, the inkjet head is placed in the inkjet head placement groove, And make the nozzle on the inkjet head be located under the liquid surface of the cleaning solution; then, start the ultrasonic generator of the inkjet head cleaning device, so that the cleaning solution cooperates with ultrasonic energy to clean the inkjet head; finally, the inkjet head The head is taken out from the inkjet head placement slot. The inkjet head can optionally be stored in an inkjet head storage tank containing a clean cleaning solution.

Because the present invention clearly has enhancing effect, so apply for invention patent according to law.

Description of drawings

In order to allow examiners to better understand the technical content of the present invention, two preferred specific embodiments and accompanying drawings are described as follows, among which:

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a preferred example of an inkjet head cleaning device of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of another preferred example of the inkjet head cleaning device of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of the cleaning method of the inkjet head after the work of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of the inkjet head cleaning method in the working of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The invention is the first time to use the principle of ultrasonic oscillation to clean the inkjet head used in the inkjet process of the organic electroluminescent element. The size of the used inkjet head slot is not limited, preferably larger than the inkjet head, more preferably just enough to accommodate the inkjet head. The cleaning solution used in the present invention is not limited, preferably deionized water, organic solvent or ink; the organic solvent is preferably water, xylene, toluene or anisole. The ultrasonic frequency generated by the ultrasonic generator of the present invention is not limited, and can be ultrasonic frequency or megasonic frequency, preferably 17KHz to 1MHz. The inkjet head cleaning device for the organic electroluminescent panel of the present invention can be applied to any organic electroluminescent panel using the inkjet process, and the organic light-emitting functional layer is a polymer light-emitting functional layer or a small molecule organic light-emitting functional layer.

The cleaning method used in the present invention can be used to clean the inkjet head that has finished working or is being jetting ink; and the cleaning device used in the present invention can also be used as a storage tank for the inkjet head, for storing the For inkjet head.

Example 1

Please refer to FIG. 1 . FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a preferred example of the inkjet head cleaning device of the present invention. The cleaning device includes an inkjet head placement tank 100 , the inkjet head placement tank 100 contains an ultrasonic generator 110 , and the inkjet head placement tank 100 is filled with deionized water 130 .

The cleaning process of this embodiment is shown in Figure 3. After the inkjet work is completed, the inkjet head 120 is taken off, placed in the inkjet head placement tank 100, and attention is paid to make the nozzle 125 located at the liquid level of the deionized water 130 Down. Then the ultrasonic generator 110 is turned on to make the deionized water generate a vibration frequency of 40 MHz, so that the vibration energy cleans the blockage on the nozzle 125 . After the cleaning is completed, the waste water in the placement tank 100 is discharged, and clean deionized water is added, and the inkjet head 120 is stored in the placement tank 100 .

Example 2

Please refer to FIG. 2 . FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of another preferred example of the inkjet head cleaning device of the present invention. The cleaning device includes an inkjet head placement tank 200, which contains an ultrasonic generator 210, and the inkjet head placement tank 200 is loaded with the same organic solvent 230 as the inkjet process .

The cleaning process of this embodiment is shown in Figure 4. After the inkjet work has been carried out for a period, the inkjet head 220 can be moved to the inkjet head placement tank 200, and attention should be paid to making the nozzle 225 located at the liquid level of the organic solvent 230 Down. Next, the ultrasonic generator 210 is turned on to make the organic solvent generate a vibration frequency of 800 KHz, thereby cleaning the blockage on the nozzle 225 with the vibration energy. After the cleaning is completed, ink is filled into the inkjet head 220 through the ink inlet 240, and removed from the storage tank 200 to continue inkjet work.

The method used in this embodiment only uses a small amount of organic solvent to complete the cleaning work, and the organic solvent used is the same as the inkjet process, so after the cleaning work is completed, the inkjet head can be directly filled with ink to continue inkjet work without consuming large amounts of ink or organic solvents.

From the above, it can be seen that the present invention introduces the principle of ultrasonic cleaning into the PLED or OLED inkjet process for the first time. If this cleaning step is performed after each inkjet process, the clogging rate can be greatly reduced and the panel production yield can be greatly improved. In addition, the cleaning method of the present invention does not need to use a large amount of ink or organic solvent to clean the blockage on the nozzle, avoiding the waste of ink, and can greatly reduce the production cost. More importantly, the device of the present invention can be used as the storage tank of the inkjet head at the same time. Compared with the traditional inkjet head storage tank or cleaning method, the present invention has both cleaning and storage functions, so that the inkjet head can be directly cleaned after cleaning. Store in clean organic solvents, ink or deionized water to avoid clogging due to dry ink on the nozzle, and it is quite convenient to use. The device and cleaning method proposed by the present invention not only have the advantages of multi-function and simple steps, but also have good efficacy.

To sum up, the present invention is different from the features of the known technology in terms of purpose, means and efficacy, and is a major breakthrough in "the inkjet head cleaning device and method in the inkjet process of organic electroluminescent panels". However, it should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments are examples only for convenience of description, and the scope of rights claimed by the present invention should be determined by the scope of the patent application, rather than being limited to the above-mentioned embodiments.

Claims (11)

1. An inkjet head cleaning device for an organic electroluminescence panel inkjet process, which is used in conjunction with an inkjet head, is characterized in that it mainly includes: an inkjet head placement slot for accommodating the inkjet head; a cleaning solution to clean the inkjet head; and an ultrasonic generator to provide the cleaning solution with sufficient energy to clean the inkjet head; Wherein the ultrasonic generator is connected with the inkjet head placement groove. 2 . The inkjet head cleaning device according to claim 1 , wherein the size of the inkjet head placement groove is just enough to accommodate the inkjet head. 3 . 3 . The inkjet head cleaning device for the inkjet process of organic electroluminescent panels as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the cleaning solution is deionized water, organic solvent or ink. 4 . 4 . The inkjet head cleaning device for the inkjet process of organic electroluminescent panels as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the ultrasonic frequency generated by the ultrasonic generator is 17KHz to 100KHz. 5 . The inkjet head cleaning device for the inkjet process of organic electroluminescence panel as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the ultrasonic frequency generated by the ultrasonic generator is 600 KHz to 1 MHz. 6 . 6. A cleaning method for an inkjet head used in an inkjet process for an organic electroluminescence panel is used in conjunction with an inkjet head, and is characterized in that it mainly includes the following steps: (a) providing an inkjet head cleaning device comprising an inkjet head placement tank, a cleaning solution, and an ultrasonic generator, wherein the ultrasonic generator is connected to the inkjet head placement tank; (b) placing the inkjet head in the inkjet head placement tank, and making the nozzles on the inkjet head be located under the liquid surface of the cleaning solution; (c) activating the ultrasonic generator of the inkjet head cleaning device, so that the cleaning solution cooperates with ultrasonic energy to clean the inkjet head; and (d) taking out the inkjet head from the inkjet head placement slot. 7. the cleaning method of the inkjet head that is used for organic electroluminescence panel inkjet process as claimed in claim 6, it is characterized in that, it also comprises step (e), this inkjet head is stored in containing clean cleaning solution The inkjet head is placed in the tank. 8. The cleaning method for the inkjet head of the organic electroluminescent panel inkjet process as claimed in claim 6, wherein the size of the inkjet head placement groove is just enough to accommodate the inkjet head . 9 . The cleaning method for the inkjet head used in the inkjet process of the organic electroluminescence panel as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the cleaning solution is deionized water, organic solvent or ink. 10 . The cleaning method for an inkjet head used in the inkjet process of an organic electroluminescent panel as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the ultrasonic frequency generated by the ultrasonic generator is 17KHz to 100KHz. 11 . 11 . The cleaning method for an inkjet head used in the inkjet process of an organic electroluminescent panel as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the ultrasonic frequency generated by the ultrasonic generator is 600 KHz to 1 MHz.

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