The role of printed electronics and related technologies in the development of smart connected products

Abstract

The emergence of novel materials with flexible and stretchable characteristics, and the use of new processing technologies, have allowed for the development of new connected devices and applications. Using printed electronics, traditional electronic elements are being combined with flexible components and allowing for the development of new smart connected products. As a result, devices that are capable of sensing, actuating, and communicating remotely while being low-cost, lightweight, conformable, and easily customizable are already being developed. Combined with the expansion of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and encryption algorithms, the overall attractiveness of these technologies has prompted new applications to appear in almost every sector. The exponential technological development is currently allowing for the “smartification” of cities, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, logistics, among others. In this review article, the steps towards this transition are approached, starting from the conceptualization of smart connected products and their main markets. The manufacturing technologies are then presented, with focus on printing-based ones, compatible with organic materials. Finally, each one of the printable components is presented and some applications are discussed.

A vibrating membrane ejector for direct ink writing of printed electronics

“…The standard deviations were generated from five measurements taken at different sections of each printed line, indicating the uniformity across the line. This line width value is still larger than the 50 µm benchmark set by commercial inkjet printers, but is comparable to the line width of screen printing and is also lower than the above 200 µm line width previously achieved with the blunt tip needle [21,33,39,40].…”

Perforated PVP encapsulated AgNWs for high mass loading in silver nanowire inks for printed RFID integrated wearable smart bands

“…The thickness of the printed trace was evaluated using a profilometer and was found to be 5.12 AE 0.28 mm. The conductivity of the printed traces was then calculated using eqn (1) and was found to be (1.16 AE 0.06) Â 10 6 S m À1 .…”

“…The evolution of printed electronics has brought about a new era of technological advancements, allowing electronics to be integrated into a vast array of applications that were previously thought unimaginable. 1 Conductive inks that maintain conductivity under extreme bending/folding conditions lie at the center of this transformative technology. [2][3][4] Due to their unique properties, one-dimensional nanostructures, particularly metallic nanowires, are gaining considerable attention for formulating conductive inks.…”

Materials screening and characterization for functional printed automotive interiors parts

“…Other printing techniques such as inkjet, aerosol jet and micro-dispensing can be performed to obtain suitable printed circuits. However, even if those techniques allow to overcome some of the SP limitations, they present other types of disadvantages such as high cost of equipment, and mainly low velocity of production, which makes them less suitable than SP for high volume productions [10,21].…”