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A low-cost, high-speed method for printing graphene inks using a conventional roll-to-roll printing process, like that used to print newspapers and crisp packets, could open up a wide range of practical applications, including inexpensive printed electronics, intelligent packaging and disposable sensors.
Developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge in collaboration with Cambridge-based technology company Novalia, the method allows graphene and other electrically conducting materials to be added to conventional water-based inks and printed using typical commercial equipment, the first time that graphene has been used for printing on a large-scale commercial printing press at high speed.
Graphene is a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms, just one atom thick. Its flexibility, optical transparency and electrical conductivity make it suitable for a wide range of applications, including printed electronics. Although numerous laboratory prototypes have been demonstrated around the world, widespread commercial use of graphene is yet to be realised.
"We are pleased to be the first to bring graphene inks close to real-world manufacturing. There are lots of companies that have produced graphene inks, but none of them has done it on a scale close to this," said Dr Tawfique Hasan of the Cambridge Graphene Centre (CGC), who developed the method. "Being able to produce conductive inks that could effortlessly be used for printing at a commercial scale at a very high speed will open up all kinds of different applications for graphene and other similar materials."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2015, @01:56AM
This is very cool and I'm sure that advertisers are drooling over the possibilities of active electronic adverts in newspapers and magazines.
But, has anyone looked at recycling paper with graphene? Does it cause any problems with the normal paper recycling process?
As an example, about 10 years ago I met a retired engineer who had designed recycling equipment. For the process he worked on, even one carbonless form (paper with incapsulated ink) would ruin a batch of recycled paper fiber. Since then I have quit buying carbonless forms. These are commonly used for checkbook registers (still in use in USA...) where you write once on the check and the pressure from the pen prints automagically on the copy that you keep.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday October 23 2015, @03:25AM
I don't think the idea here is to print on paper in quantities significant enough to a recycling issue.
We are talking about electronic circuitry including inexpensive printed electronics, intelligent packaging and disposable sensors.
Intelligent Packaging is an odd mix of things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_packaging [wikipedia.org]
There is recycling targets for just about any paper products except those with a boat load of wet-strength resin [wikipedia.org].
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.