Partnership for printed electronics with focus on automotive applications and smart packaging
Henkel Adhesive Technologies and ContiTech Elastomer Coatings will now be working more closely together in the fields of functional printing and printed electronics. The two companies announced the agreement at the recent drupa.
With the cooperation, the companies aim to develop products using cost-effective roll-to-roll processing in flexographic and other printing processes. This includes industrial applications such as sensors, speakers, and functional films, as well as security applications for consumer goods (tracking and identification using RFID, radio-frequency identification, for example), or intelligent packaging with additional NFC (near field communication) functions.
“We will bring our experience of the printing process, Henkel its material expertise in functional inks and substances,” says Dr. Thomas Perković, head of the Printing Blanket segment at ContiTech, a division of technology company Continental. “Printed electronics are an important area not only for our customers, but also for Continental and its products for the automotive industry.”
“Together with ContiTech as leading provider of flexographic printing solutions we want to develop the up-and-coming functional printing and printed electronics markets and create an alternative to the existing manufacturing process,” says Dr. Paolo Bavaj, Corporate Director New Business Development at Henkel Adhesive Technologies. “Our contribution to this is our wide-ranging, high-performance portfolio of conductive inks. We are excited to be working closely with Continental because we believe that meaningful innovation is only possible through strong partnerships and within innovation ecosystems.”
At drupa, Henkel presented its broad adhesive portfolio for packaging solutions especially for the food industry. It is already working to commercialize printed electronics such as NFC tags for consumer goods. The technology is offering great potentials for authentication and to provide additional information to consumers.
