Quantica, an additive manufacturing expertise supplier, and ELANTAS, a producer of insulating and protecting supplies, have partnered to adapt a high-viscosity silver ink, historically utilized in display screen printing, to be used with Quantica’s inkjet expertise. This collaboration goals to develop an economical, digital different for printed electronics, particularly for creating conductive tracks for versatile electronics.
Whereas standard printheads are unable to jet supplies with bigger particles, Quantica’s NovoJet printhead targets supplies with particle sizes as much as 9µm and fill charges of over 50wt%. This permits particle diameters as much as 100x bigger in comparison with typical nanoparticle inks. Bigger particles and better fill charges end in higher properties for conductive supplies and considerably cut back prices in uncooked supplies.
With help from Fraunhofer IPA, the workforce has recognized a fine-line silver ink from ELANTAS’s portfolio and is at present evaluating appropriate mixing ratios and printable parameter ranges. This work helps to stipulate key points for an optimized ink formulation that might be tuned for the NovoJet printhead. By enabling using this new ink, the goal is to considerably decrease manufacturing prices and supply a extra environment friendly manufacturing course of for printed electronics.
“Display printing stays essentially the most extensively used software technique in printed electronics, providing clear benefits when processing extremely viscous and closely stuffed supplies. The thought of digitally jetting such formulations to create custom-made constructions in actual time, and even going past the restrictions of display screen printing, is extremely thrilling. As printed electronics proceed to develop, I consider this demand will rise as nicely. With Quantica’s jetting expertise, I see nice potential for us to realize significant progress collectively,” stated Berit Schuster, Head of R&D Printed Electronics at ELANTAS Europe.
“This collaboration between ELANTAS and Quantica opens up the floodgates for enabling new purposes within the area of printed electronics. With the supplies and buyer purposes in ELANTAS’s portfolio, Quantica will be capable of rapidly validate ultra-high viscosity inkjet with present and licensed supplies and processes. That is just the start, and nice issues are certainly to return,” stated Ben Hartkopp, Founder, Inventor, Head of Analysis & IP at Quantica.
This collaboration goals to develop a extra accessible, environment friendly, and digital manufacturing different for the printed electronics business.