Center Smart Materials and Adaptive Systems CeSMASUPERSMART: Scale-Up of Printed Electronics Recyclable SMART materials
The goal of SUPERSMART project is the industrialization of high-performance key materials in order to secure the electronic material supply chain.
SUPERSMART focuses on industrialization of materials and their processing guided by different use cases:
Paper-based electronics paves the way to intelligent newspapers, smart labels and further paper-based products. But, moreover, paper substrates can be produced with low use of oil-based raw materials compared to polymer substrates and are more easy to recycle lowering the CO2 footprint. Only high-quality paper with low surface roughness is suited as electronic substrate. Electronics based on metal-oxides is often used in large area electronics such as display backplanes. Transparency and high charge carrier mobility can be achieved by this kind of material. Since metal-oxides as wet chemical can be produced for additive printing processes, the use of harmful etching solutions can be bypassed, and the amount of used materials is minimized. No energy-intensive vacuum processes have to be used. In SUPERSMART, metal oxides based on zinc-tin-oxides are up-scaled preventing the use of scarce materials such as indium and gallium.
Pressure sensor arrays based on piezopolymers avoid the use of lead-containing conventional piezoceramics. Additionally, the capability to print piezopolymers enables one to create an arbitrarily sensor design from large area sensors to minimized sensor cell arrays. Low temperature treatment opens the way to use flexible (polymer or paper based) substrates. Pyroelectric effects (cross-sensitivity against thermal changes) can be completely suppressed.
Near field communication devices can be integrated in smart labels or smart cards. Adapting the process for polymeric or paper based substrates results in cost-effective high-through-put production schemes and paves the way to ambient electronics.
