Functional Printing Laboratory
(Åbo Akademi University)
Tapio Mäkelä
PhD, Project Manager
In order to realize low-cost roll-to-roll production of intelligent paper- and plastic based products, high-speed production techniques, such as printing and coating, need to be employed. The target for the Functional Printing Laboratory (FPL) is to demonstrate suitable roll-to-roll production techniques for functional materials within FUNMAT, as well as to develop novel methods for using nonconventional printing inks including for example insulating, semiconducting, conducting or magnetic materials.
FPL hosts laboratory-scale equipment used for versatile functional printing to demonstrate printed organic electronic devices on both plastic and fiber-based substrates. Due to the varying nature of novel inks a single printing method cannot meet all the needs required in producing complex multilayer device structures. The type of solvent, viscosity, surface tension and particle size of the material to be printed influences the choice of the most suitable method. Furthermore, the device configuration, alignment accuracy and minimum feature size need to be considered when choosing the printing technique.
FPL has developed a novel continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing technique for testing and prototyping purposes. Our custom-built, modular roll-to-roll printer (FUNPRINTER) can use sequentially up to six different printing units (gravure, flexo, coating, ink-jet, lamination) combined with online sintering. The printing parameters can be analyzed in-situ since the web speed can be controlled from 0.1 up to 20 meters/minute. The small scale roll-to-roll device enables printing with only a few milliliters of functional inks or when the material of choice is not commercially available. The ultimate target of FPL is prototyping autonomous multifunctional all printed devices in a roll-to-roll process.
Street-address: Porthansgatan 3, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
Web-address: www.funmat.fi
