I-Corps: Inks for Printed Electronics

I-Corps：印刷电子油墨

• 批准号: 1644805
• 负责人: Margaret Joyce
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Western Michigan University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2017-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1644805&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Inks; Printed; Electronics

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to develop a functional ink formulation process, which would be scalable, economical and effective for printed electronics. Developed manufacturing processes would be low cost while resulting in high performance functional inks suitable for printed electronics market. Electronics devices are constantly getting smaller, thinner and sleeker. Newly designed electronics devices therefore require new methods of manufacturing components such as electrical boards. The printed electronics market can offer benefits that conventional circuits cannot. Additionally, other application areas for these functional inks can include touch screens, printed circuit boards, display panels, marketing displays/packaging, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, wearables, and sensors. Therefore, commercial potential of our functional inks would be to transition from conventional electronics manufacturing and allow the customer to reap economic benefits related to printing manufacturing process using specifically tailored functional printed electronics inks.This I-Corps project is focused on the formulation of functional inks suitable for printed electronics. The uniqueness of this formulation approach is to create specialty inks that can easily transition into existing printing systems and equipment such as screen-printing, flexo, and gravure. Proprietary ink manufacturing processes allow for functional nanoparticles to be efficiently made into high performance, low cost functional inks and coatings. The proposed technology uses a single stream of raw materials that can be used for one functional ink and then with simple alterations, ink can be tailored for specific printing process (screen, flexo, gravure). Traditionally, inks are made and optimized for each printing process separately. This ink formulation process could allow for applications ranging from replacement of traditional electronic circuits, interactive displays, wearables and new interactive packaging/labeling. The unique functional ink formulation technology offers a way to use conventional printing processes to economically manufacture electrical components such as batteries, transistors, and sensors which can then be designed into simple circuits and printed on flexible substrates such as plastic or paper.

该I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发功能性的墨水配方过程，该工艺对于印刷电子产品具有可扩展性，经济性和有效性。开发的制造工艺将是低成本，同时产生适合印刷电子市场的高性能功能油墨。 电子设备越来越小，更薄，更光滑。因此，新设计的电子设备需要新的制造组件（例如电板）的方法。印刷的电子市场可以提供传统电路所无法的收益。此外，这些功能墨水的其他应用区域可以包括触摸屏，印刷电路板，显示面板，营销显示/包装，RFID（射频标识）标签，可穿戴设备和传感器。因此，我们功能墨水的商业潜力将是从常规电子制造业过渡，并允许客户使用专门量身定制的功能性印刷电子墨水获得与印刷制造过程相关的经济利益。本I-Corps项目集中于适合印刷电子产品的功能墨水的制定。这种配方方法的独特性是创建可以轻松过渡到现有印刷系统和设备（例如屏幕打印，flexo和Grafture）的特色油墨。专有的墨水制造过程使功能性纳米颗粒可以有效地制成高性能，低成本的功能墨水和涂料。拟议的技术使用单一的原材料流，可用于一种功能墨水，然后通过简单的更改，可以针对特定的打印过程（屏幕，Flexo，Gravure）量身定制墨水。传统上，墨水是分别为每个打印过程制成和优化的。这种墨水配方过程可以允许使用传统电子电路，交互式显示器，可穿戴设备和新的交互式包装/标签等应用程序。独特的功能墨水配方技术提供了一种使用常规打印过程来经济生产电池组件（例如电池，晶体管和传感器）的方法，然后可以将其设计成简单的电路并在诸如塑料或纸等柔性基材上打印。