Precisia Highlights Its Conductive Inks At Drupa

Precisia LLC is highlighting its conductive inks for high-speed printing processes at Drupa 2004.

Precisia LLC is highlighting its conductive inks for high-speed printing processes at Drupa 2004.

The inks serve as the antenna in radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and are used for other printed electronics applications including smart labelling and packaging, printed circuits, lighting and displays.

Precisia's conductive inks are formulated specifically for lithographic, gravure, rotary screen and flexographic printing and are claimed to enable traditional printers to enter a market poised for explosive growth.

Precisia offers Silver Gravure and Silver Flexo Conductive Inks in both solvent- and water-based formulations for the flexographic and gravure printing of conductive films.

The inks can be incorporated into traditional printing lines to enable the rapid manufacture of RFID antennas, electronic shielding and low-power electronics.

Claimed to be long lasting, stable and durable, silver materials enable longer read ranges for printed antennas and greater flexibility in printed circuit design.

Each of the inks prints on a variety of substrates, including paper, paperboard and synthetic materials.

The Water Silver Conductive Inks are environmentally friendly with low VOCs said the company.

Precisia also offers two lithographic ink products.

Its Silver Lithographic Conductive Ink offers acceptable conductivity levels for producing RFID antennas and simple printed electronics.

Silver Lithographic Seed Ink enables the printing of flexible circuits through high-speed lithographic printing.

When printed, the seed ink serves as a pattern for subsequent plating to form flexible copper circuit tracks.

This additive process offers cost and environmental advantages over traditional circuit manufacturing techniques, such as copper etching.

The ink can be used for high-volume, high-conductivity applications claimed Precisia.

The company produces both lithographic products under license from RT Circuits of Scotland, a specialist in circuit manufacturing technology, and Brunel University of the United Kingdom.

The company also offers a Silver Conductor Ink formulated for screen printing on a wide variety of substrates including paper, fibre and plastic films.

"We help printers, converters and packagers respond effectively to the mandates of retailers and suppliers to implement RFID into the supply chain.

Printing RFID antennas with conductive inks and high-speed printing processes lowers costs and increases the production speed of tags," said Jim Rohrkemper, president of Precisia.

Conductive inks, which contain particles of conductive silver or carbon, replace copper coils to act as the wire in the transfer of electric signals or power, he added.

"The ability to print wires to any desired pattern is a distinct advantage over routing wires mechanically.

We have used our extensive ink, print and electronics experience to develop conductive inks that print optimally with traditional printing processes and existing presses.

A single printing press adapted to print RFID antennas could, for example, produce from one billion to one trillion antennas per year depending on press design and size," added Dan Lawrence, director of technology at Precisia.

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