David Savastano, Editor11.13.20
As part of Ink Week, the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM), along with Ink World and Printed Electronics Now, held the third annual Electronic & Conductive Ink Conference on Oct. 15-16.
Estimates place the conductive ink field at more than $2.3 billion, and since flexible and printed electronics applications are becoming more commercial, the market is growing.
The Electronic and Conductive Ink Conference showcased the latest trends in conductive inks and flexible and printed electronics, with talks on smart packaging, displays, sensors, healthcare, equipment, testing, and, of course, conductive inks.
Intelligent Packaging
Keynote speaker James Lee, director, Innovation Solutions Group, Jones Healthcare Group, opened the conference with his talk, “Our Journey to Produce Intelligent Packaging.”
“We produce products for pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies, natural health products, medical device, personal care and wellness and consumer goods and specialty products,” Lee said. “Our journey into smart packaging began about eight years ago when we asked how we could differentiate ourselves.”
Lee said that getting track and trace information for customers, engaging consumers more dynamically, and improving healthcare outcomes with packaging were some of the ideas. The next question was what features could be added and how Jones would manufacture them.
“Fifty percent of medications that are prescribed are not taken by patients,” Lee observed. “We wanted to make these products smart, and printed electronics can do that.
“We printed conductive traces,” said Lee. “The conductivity of these traces is enough to provide sensing capabilities. To make it work, we had devices that could interrogate the packages. We could print 200 feet per minute with no cleanroom and unmodified printing equipment. We also did concurrent development in NFC inlays, and can apply NFC verified tags greater than 5,000 units per hour in an integrated fashion.”
Jones Healthcare recently introduced its CpaX Connected Packaging system, which connects the patient to the doctor.
“With CpaX, the cartons connect to the internet so doctors can know if the patient is taking their medication,” said Lee. “It generates reports, detects and tracks exactly when each dose
is taken.”
The Future of Food
Eric Weaver, CEO, Transparent Path spc, followed with “Printed IoT and the Future of Food,” offering a sobering look at food wastage and how printed electronics can help in that regard.
“Forty percent of our food, $218 billion worth, is lost every single year,” Weaver said. “It goes straight from the farm to the landfill. Yet 17 million US children are going hungry every day. According to Maersk, 75% of all food loss occurs in the supply chain before retail. This is a huge problem.”
Drivers haul perishable food across the country and sometimes turn the refrigeration off. Temperatures can go to dangerous levels. Food companies try to find out what happened, but missing information makes it difficult if not impossible.
“Today, food producers throw sensors into their food shipments,” Weaver added. “These sensors are completely reliant on drivers and retailers.”
Weaver said the first step is to fill in the black hole of data.
“Rather than download USB data or manually input data, we use IoT sensors that are continuously connected and provide a ledger with temperature, humidity, light, air pressure, shock and tilt,” Weaver added. “We can share this data across partners, and an AI engine operationalizes that data. We apply sensors to the food shipment load, and if we have a growing problem, we can alert the driver in real-time to fix the issue.”
“By bringing printed sensors to food, printed electronics will help guide the future of food. Printed electronic and conductive inks can make a huge difference in our food’s future,” Weaver said.
The Future of Conductive Inks
Conductive inks were the subject for the next three talks.
Chris Booher, chief marketing officer, ChemCubed, discussed “Advantages of Particle-Free Silver Conductive Inks in Thin-Film Printed Electronics.” Booher noted that the explosion in the number of IoT devices is leading to increased interest in printed electronics.
“Thin-film flexible electronics place conductive traces on a conformable, stretchable substrate that are nanometers to microns thick,” he continued. “It is making new devices possible that were never possible before.”
Booher pointed out that ChemCubed’s ElectroJet ink technology requires less time and temperatures for sintering.
“It’s more about the ink than you think, including conductivity performance, sintering temperature and time, compatibility, physical durability and flexibility,” Booher added. “ElectroJet is particle-free silver ink and transparent. It is void-free and fully conductive and has excellent adhesion of multiple substrates. Particle-free dry film layers are essentially near bulk silver.”
Brian Violette, applications engineer II, Creative Materials, followed with “Direct to Fabric Printing of Electronic Materials.” He noted that many devices have been printed since the popularization of membrane touch panels in the early 1980s. New form factors are now using stretchable substrates.
“Heaters have been printed in jackets and pants – they are a quite common application,” said Violette. “Printed electroluminescent panels for workwear and safety, sensors for medical applications like arch supports – there is no shortage of devices that use printed electronics.
“There is a huge range of options onto textiles,” Violette added. “Although many substrate choices are available, there has been very little work for them using printed electronics. Most functional inks are not designed to elongate. The most common failure is cracking of the conductive ink trace.”
Sai Srinivas Desabathina, manufacturing engineer, Liquid Wire, Inc., closed the first day with his talk on “Electromechanical Characterization of Flexible Inductive Proximity Touch Sensor, Fabricated Using Liquid Wire’s Metal Gel.”
“Metal Gel is a proprietary alloy of gallium, indium and tin,” said Desabathina. “We can directly print high viscosity fluid that flows and stretches with substrates. It is substrate agnostic. It is ideal for wearable applications such as EMGs, breathing monitors and pressure sensing, and should be commercial by 2021.”
The Future of Flexible Electronics
The Friday, Oct. 16 session began with Dr. Christian Brox-Nilsen, R2R production manager, Ynvisible, who gave the keynote talk, “What It Takes to Make Smart Objects Smile.”
Ynvisible offers lab scale, pilot production and full volume roll to roll production. Its ink development is done in Freiburg, Germany.
“Inks are at the core of our daily operations, from electrolytes to electrochromics,” Dr. Brox-Nilsen said. “Some inks we buy commercially and some we have developed in-house.”
Ynvisible can produce on sheets or rolls, which allow for large volume production.
“Printing on sheets is typically where we start when we are testing and can be scaled up to roll-to-roll,” Dr. Brox-Nilsen said. “The process we most often use in screen, but we also use slot die and gravure. For displays we use screenprinting.”
Thomas Kolbusch, VP, Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, followed with his talk on “Silver Nano Wire Upscale from lab2fab - Overview on the Development on R2R Processes.”
“We make coating, printing and laminating equipment. Our vision is lab2fab,” Kolbusch began. “We build lab systems from lab to pilot and production systems.”
Kolbusch noted that Coatema sees the need for replacing ITO in different markets, including flexible displays for smart homes, cars and smartphones. As for alternatives for ITO, Kolbusch believes that silver nanowires and metal mesh are the two leaders.
“IDTechEx says replacement will grow significantly as ITO is not flexible,” Kolbusch noted. “There are a lot of different approaches, such as metal mesh and silver nanowire, and there will be a competition between them. I don’t see carbon nanotubes and graphene as the answer at the moment. Maybe in 10 years. The biggest application for silver nanowires is large touch screens.”
Dr. Matthew Dyson, technology analyst, IDTechEx, provided an overview of the conductive ink market in his talk, “Emerging Application Opportunities for Conductive Inks.”
“We estimate conductive ink being a $2.3 billion market,” Dr. Dyson said. “Flake-based silver inks are a mature technology, with screenprinting being the dominant approach. Nanoparticle-based inks have improved conductivity.
More recently, we are seeing particle-free inks formed by in-situ reduction. Copper inks are a cheaper cost alternative over silver-based but it oxidizes easily. Liquid alloy metal gel inks have excellent functionality.”
Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, GM, Bayflex Optics, discussed testing with his talk on “Better Testing Designs for Printed and Flexible Electronics.”
Tsuyuzaki noted that flexible electronics needs to move with the human body – stretching, flexing and twisting.
“Because it is flexible, it is extremely important to test raw materials in the front end of the process rather than the end.”
OmniPly CEO Harit Doshi closed the conference with “Sticker Electronics.”
“Customers want larger displays and the way to do that is foldable displays,” added Doshi. “It’s only a matter of time before the larger players will have a bendable or foldable form. I think a few years from now, we will ask how we managed with a 3.5-inch display.”
OmniPly is working on sticker electronics, where the display is peeled off of glass and placed on another surface.
“OmniPly’s vision is a world where any electronic device can be pasted anywhere just like stickers, to add smart functionality to everyday objects,’ said Doshi. “These could be used for fingerprint sensors, plasmonic films, medical sensors, flexible OLED, flexible solar cells and thin-film sensors.”
Estimates place the conductive ink field at more than $2.3 billion, and since flexible and printed electronics applications are becoming more commercial, the market is growing.
The Electronic and Conductive Ink Conference showcased the latest trends in conductive inks and flexible and printed electronics, with talks on smart packaging, displays, sensors, healthcare, equipment, testing, and, of course, conductive inks.
Intelligent Packaging
Keynote speaker James Lee, director, Innovation Solutions Group, Jones Healthcare Group, opened the conference with his talk, “Our Journey to Produce Intelligent Packaging.”
“We produce products for pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies, natural health products, medical device, personal care and wellness and consumer goods and specialty products,” Lee said. “Our journey into smart packaging began about eight years ago when we asked how we could differentiate ourselves.”
Lee said that getting track and trace information for customers, engaging consumers more dynamically, and improving healthcare outcomes with packaging were some of the ideas. The next question was what features could be added and how Jones would manufacture them.
“Fifty percent of medications that are prescribed are not taken by patients,” Lee observed. “We wanted to make these products smart, and printed electronics can do that.
“We printed conductive traces,” said Lee. “The conductivity of these traces is enough to provide sensing capabilities. To make it work, we had devices that could interrogate the packages. We could print 200 feet per minute with no cleanroom and unmodified printing equipment. We also did concurrent development in NFC inlays, and can apply NFC verified tags greater than 5,000 units per hour in an integrated fashion.”
Jones Healthcare recently introduced its CpaX Connected Packaging system, which connects the patient to the doctor.
“With CpaX, the cartons connect to the internet so doctors can know if the patient is taking their medication,” said Lee. “It generates reports, detects and tracks exactly when each dose
is taken.”
The Future of Food
Eric Weaver, CEO, Transparent Path spc, followed with “Printed IoT and the Future of Food,” offering a sobering look at food wastage and how printed electronics can help in that regard.
“Forty percent of our food, $218 billion worth, is lost every single year,” Weaver said. “It goes straight from the farm to the landfill. Yet 17 million US children are going hungry every day. According to Maersk, 75% of all food loss occurs in the supply chain before retail. This is a huge problem.”
Drivers haul perishable food across the country and sometimes turn the refrigeration off. Temperatures can go to dangerous levels. Food companies try to find out what happened, but missing information makes it difficult if not impossible.
“Today, food producers throw sensors into their food shipments,” Weaver added. “These sensors are completely reliant on drivers and retailers.”
Weaver said the first step is to fill in the black hole of data.
“Rather than download USB data or manually input data, we use IoT sensors that are continuously connected and provide a ledger with temperature, humidity, light, air pressure, shock and tilt,” Weaver added. “We can share this data across partners, and an AI engine operationalizes that data. We apply sensors to the food shipment load, and if we have a growing problem, we can alert the driver in real-time to fix the issue.”
“By bringing printed sensors to food, printed electronics will help guide the future of food. Printed electronic and conductive inks can make a huge difference in our food’s future,” Weaver said.
The Future of Conductive Inks
Conductive inks were the subject for the next three talks.
Chris Booher, chief marketing officer, ChemCubed, discussed “Advantages of Particle-Free Silver Conductive Inks in Thin-Film Printed Electronics.” Booher noted that the explosion in the number of IoT devices is leading to increased interest in printed electronics.
“Thin-film flexible electronics place conductive traces on a conformable, stretchable substrate that are nanometers to microns thick,” he continued. “It is making new devices possible that were never possible before.”
Booher pointed out that ChemCubed’s ElectroJet ink technology requires less time and temperatures for sintering.
“It’s more about the ink than you think, including conductivity performance, sintering temperature and time, compatibility, physical durability and flexibility,” Booher added. “ElectroJet is particle-free silver ink and transparent. It is void-free and fully conductive and has excellent adhesion of multiple substrates. Particle-free dry film layers are essentially near bulk silver.”
Brian Violette, applications engineer II, Creative Materials, followed with “Direct to Fabric Printing of Electronic Materials.” He noted that many devices have been printed since the popularization of membrane touch panels in the early 1980s. New form factors are now using stretchable substrates.
“Heaters have been printed in jackets and pants – they are a quite common application,” said Violette. “Printed electroluminescent panels for workwear and safety, sensors for medical applications like arch supports – there is no shortage of devices that use printed electronics.
“There is a huge range of options onto textiles,” Violette added. “Although many substrate choices are available, there has been very little work for them using printed electronics. Most functional inks are not designed to elongate. The most common failure is cracking of the conductive ink trace.”
Sai Srinivas Desabathina, manufacturing engineer, Liquid Wire, Inc., closed the first day with his talk on “Electromechanical Characterization of Flexible Inductive Proximity Touch Sensor, Fabricated Using Liquid Wire’s Metal Gel.”
“Metal Gel is a proprietary alloy of gallium, indium and tin,” said Desabathina. “We can directly print high viscosity fluid that flows and stretches with substrates. It is substrate agnostic. It is ideal for wearable applications such as EMGs, breathing monitors and pressure sensing, and should be commercial by 2021.”
The Future of Flexible Electronics
The Friday, Oct. 16 session began with Dr. Christian Brox-Nilsen, R2R production manager, Ynvisible, who gave the keynote talk, “What It Takes to Make Smart Objects Smile.”
Ynvisible offers lab scale, pilot production and full volume roll to roll production. Its ink development is done in Freiburg, Germany.
“Inks are at the core of our daily operations, from electrolytes to electrochromics,” Dr. Brox-Nilsen said. “Some inks we buy commercially and some we have developed in-house.”
Ynvisible can produce on sheets or rolls, which allow for large volume production.
“Printing on sheets is typically where we start when we are testing and can be scaled up to roll-to-roll,” Dr. Brox-Nilsen said. “The process we most often use in screen, but we also use slot die and gravure. For displays we use screenprinting.”
Thomas Kolbusch, VP, Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, followed with his talk on “Silver Nano Wire Upscale from lab2fab - Overview on the Development on R2R Processes.”
“We make coating, printing and laminating equipment. Our vision is lab2fab,” Kolbusch began. “We build lab systems from lab to pilot and production systems.”
Kolbusch noted that Coatema sees the need for replacing ITO in different markets, including flexible displays for smart homes, cars and smartphones. As for alternatives for ITO, Kolbusch believes that silver nanowires and metal mesh are the two leaders.
“IDTechEx says replacement will grow significantly as ITO is not flexible,” Kolbusch noted. “There are a lot of different approaches, such as metal mesh and silver nanowire, and there will be a competition between them. I don’t see carbon nanotubes and graphene as the answer at the moment. Maybe in 10 years. The biggest application for silver nanowires is large touch screens.”
Dr. Matthew Dyson, technology analyst, IDTechEx, provided an overview of the conductive ink market in his talk, “Emerging Application Opportunities for Conductive Inks.”
“We estimate conductive ink being a $2.3 billion market,” Dr. Dyson said. “Flake-based silver inks are a mature technology, with screenprinting being the dominant approach. Nanoparticle-based inks have improved conductivity.
More recently, we are seeing particle-free inks formed by in-situ reduction. Copper inks are a cheaper cost alternative over silver-based but it oxidizes easily. Liquid alloy metal gel inks have excellent functionality.”
Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, GM, Bayflex Optics, discussed testing with his talk on “Better Testing Designs for Printed and Flexible Electronics.”
Tsuyuzaki noted that flexible electronics needs to move with the human body – stretching, flexing and twisting.
“Because it is flexible, it is extremely important to test raw materials in the front end of the process rather than the end.”
OmniPly CEO Harit Doshi closed the conference with “Sticker Electronics.”
“Customers want larger displays and the way to do that is foldable displays,” added Doshi. “It’s only a matter of time before the larger players will have a bendable or foldable form. I think a few years from now, we will ask how we managed with a 3.5-inch display.”
OmniPly is working on sticker electronics, where the display is peeled off of glass and placed on another surface.
“OmniPly’s vision is a world where any electronic device can be pasted anywhere just like stickers, to add smart functionality to everyday objects,’ said Doshi. “These could be used for fingerprint sensors, plasmonic films, medical sensors, flexible OLED, flexible solar cells and thin-film sensors.”
