Industry Trio Taking Printed Electronics Research Project into Industrial-Scale Phase

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY—August 2, 2012—BASF, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg), and TU Darmstadt are pleased with the results of the first phase of their joint “Nanostructuring and plastic electronics print platform” (NanoPEP) research project and have agreed to continue the work. Researchers at the participating companies have been working on nano-based functional materials and the related innovative printing methods for processing these since summer 2009.

The resulting applications in the field of organic electronics are based on conductive polymers and on smaller molecules of organic chemistry and are regarded as important technologies of the future offering considerable economic potential. Their areas of application extend from organic circuits and storage devices to photovoltaics and organic LEDs.

This cross-sector project is one of the heavyweight projects conducted by the Leading-Edge Cluster “Forum Organic Electronics,” which is promoted by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and headquartered in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. Its links with other members of the cluster active in areas such as OLEDs, solar cells, and printed circuits give it access to a broad range of technologies for developing possible applications.

First functional elements produced under laboratory conditions
Significant progress has already been made in the initial project phase. A rotary printing press based on the Gallus RCS 330 provided the platform for this. Heidelberg has a 30-percent holding in the Swiss Gallus Group.

Initial functional elements have already been produced under laboratory conditions in the cluster's clean room using modified printing methods. The task of transferring these processes to an industrial scale over the next two years is the primary purpose of the NanoPEP2 follow-up project commenced in 2012.

In addition to the ongoing development of the nano-structured materials and the associated printing methods, practical demonstrators will be used to show the functionality of the printed components. These can take the form, for example, of flexible OLEDs or solar cells produced in the cluster's joint clean room.