Printable inks for pressure sensing win ‘Toxicant Replacement Hero Award’
Quantum Technology Supersensors has won ‘Toxicant Replacement Hero Award’ at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe Awards.
Quantum Technology Supersensors (QTSS™) is a specialist smart materials development company. Its founder, David Lussey, presented innovations from QTSS™ at KTN’s Chemistry & Industrial Biotechnology Showcase 2017, in the session on Functional Materials for Targeted Properties.
The ‘Toxicant Replacement Hero Award’ recognises this advanced materials start-up’s environmentally friendly printable inks that can create smart pressure sensing surfaces and 3D Force Touch at a reduced cost whilst addressing the need to remove toxigens in electronics.
Its printable inks for pressure/force sensing are compatible with existing manufacturing lines and open source software, allowing flexible sensors and sensing surfaces to be produced that enable game-changing products across a number of industries including consumer, IOT, flexible screens & displays, wearables, automotive, aerospace, robotics, healthcare, medical, smart homes and packaging.
QTSS™ smart magnetite based printable inks do not contain dangerous volatile organic compounds and are easy to separate out for recycling. They are skin and food contact safe and harness Quantum Technology in such a way as to achieve functionalities that have been otherwise unattainable. They are anisotropic and change from ‘insulator’ to ‘conductor’ under pressure, becoming increasingly conductive in proportion to the amount of force applied and importantly are low power processing. This massive resistance range of over a billion ohms can be utilised in unique ways and the sensitivities of these inks can also be altered to suit different applications. They are flexible, durable, reliable and can be printed directly onto most substrates including recyclable paper, card and textiles to turn those surfaces into functional pressure sensing surfaces and switches.
The printing of thin, flexible and lightweight electronic sensors using large scale high volume manufacturing processes opens up a host of design opportunities in key market sectors with a cost and functionality that cannot be achieved with conventional electronics or materials. A single printed QTSS‚Ñ¢ dot can even operate as a 3D joystick and a single sensor can be simply reconfigured through software to fit multiple applications. Force-based zoom, scroll and select controls can be easily printed and the technology eliminates false touch issues.
New user interfaces and 3D touch surfaces are feasible and touch capability can become structurally integrated in devices allowing new design opportunities, space saving, assembly simplification, weight reduction, efficiency gains and a move from ‘2D touch’ capability to a ‘3D force touch’ capability.
QTSS™ functional inks are being deployed by licensee Infi-Tex who are creating interactive textile wearables with environmentally friendly, skin safe, hard wearing, washable switches and pressure sensors without sacrificing the aesthetic appeal of the textiles Рselected by the UK’s Department for International Trade as one of the UK’s 30 brightest tech innovations.
David Lussey, founder said:
“We are very excited to have received this award. The development of our environmentally friendly Quantum Technology Supersensor™ inks allows the creation of flexible, smart functional pressure sensing surfaces and 3D Force Touch ‘without costing the earth’!”
You can find out more about Quantum Technology Supersensors here.