Henkel, Quad Industries Accelerate Prototyping, Scale-up, Production of Smart Products

Henkel Adhesive Technologies and Quad Industries, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, announced the expansion of their strategic partnership to offer capacities and support for technological value creation and prototyping with printed electronics solutions across multiple industries. 

The companies started their collaboration in 2019 and since then successfully worked on different projects such as the development of the innovative  COVID-19 smart health patch introduced by Byteflies that was launched in 2020. 

Quad Industries has become a strategic partner in Henkel’s ecosystem for design creation, prototyping and manufacturing of printed electronics via flatbed screen printing.

“At Henkel, we believe in a differentiated partnership approach across the entire value chain,” said Stijn Gillissen, head of Printed Electronics at Henkel. “Our network enables us to provide customers not only with products and knowledge but also connecting them with circuit designers, printing manufacturers or external IoT specialists. Together we can leverage the potential of digital transformations by utilizing the benefits of printed electronics.”

“At Quad Industries, we see the growth potentials for electronics manufacturers to innovate with new material solutions provided by leading material suppliers such as Henkel,” said Arne Casteleyn, managing director, Sales and Strategy at Quad Industries. “Based on our multidisciplinary expertise we can support them in developing highly innovative smart products that create additional value for consumers. By enlarging our strategic partnership with Henkel, we aim to strengthen the creation of printed electronics solutions such as electronic skin patches, stretchable sensors, film heaters or film antennas and even accelerate the time to market. The novel skin patch solution from Byteflies already is a good example for the value of this collaboration.”

Together with Henkel, Quad Industries and four other medical and technology companies, Belgium-based Byteflies, a medically certified B2B-services company, developed a smart health patch for remote patient monitoring. 

The system was initially set up to monitor the vital functions of patients with heart failure and epilepsy. 

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 the partners leveraged the patch’s potential for coronavirus patients. 

This new COVID-19 smart health patch allows continuous, remote, and wireless monitoring of patients’ respiration, heart rate, and temperature and is already applied by numerous hospitals in Flanders, Belgium, to monitor up to 300 patients infected with the virus.

Henkel solutions ensure the optimal material performance of the COVID-19 smart health patch and other digitally enhanced medical applications, for example for point-of-care diagnostics or wound care. 

The company has developed medical electrodes and conductive inks that enable the patch to be used for five days rather than just one. 

Quad Industries printed the electronic circuit on a very thin and stretchable foil and integrated the technology into the wearable patches. 

The two companies now bundle their expertise to enhance the support of manufacturers in the development, commercialization and production of smart printed electronics solutions in markets such as healthcare, hygienics, automotive and furniture and building.

“The closer collaboration will enable us to offer our customers a ‘one-stop-shop’ for prototyping printed electronics innovations in a matter of weeks,” Gillissen said. “As our trusted ecosystem partner Quad Industries will support the prototyping, design creation and manufacturing of printed electronics via flatbed screen printing. This includes the optimization of printed sensors based on Henkel’s materials know-how as well as the production of high-volume applications.”

“The partnership offers customers a comprehensive and fast development support starting with the direct access to the companies´ R&D teams comprising experts in material and manufacturing know-how in printed electronics,” Casteleyn added. “Together we can offer quick feasibility analysis and fast functional prototyping of novel customer ideas.”