Ceepackaging

Events

Disposable electronics for intelligent packages

The “parent exhibition” FachPack takes up the trend issues of flexibility and automation. The special show on “Robotics, Assortments and Automation in Packaging” presents a packaging line in which the products fed in are packed in their primary and secondary packaging, palleted and finally packed for shipment – all fully automatically and including the relevant labelling systems. The special show at PrintPack and a whole-day seminar the day before the exhibition deal with protection against counterfeits. Not only high-quality cosmetics, luxury articles, drugs, car or aircraft parts are copied, but more and more products for everyday life as well. The special show gives tips on how packaging can make life difficult for counterfeiters.

The special show at LogIntern is devoted to the close interaction between packing and transport. It focuses on the necessary coupling of material flow via conveying, storage and order-picking equipment and suitable information technologies.

Freshly printed: the talking package
One subject that links all three Nürnberg packaging exhibitions is printed electronics, which will capture many segments in the future. This new technology will prove its versatility and flexibility and open up amazing possibilities in logistics, article tracing and marketing and on packages. The first products will soon be on the mass market. The manufacturers of packages are carefully observing the state of developments and are partly involved themselves.

Making a package talk, play music or light up without wiring or expensive electronic modules is no longer a vision since electrically conductive printing media have been available. A number of products stimulate the imagination in the market: Prototypes of RFID tags (Radio Frequency Identification) in the 13.56-MHz frequency range and printed on a roll make smart packaging possible for logistics. A cornflakes packet with printed display and control keys for games or product information give the package new value. Interactive collecting cards networked to the computer by an RF tag were launched on the market by a Chemnitz company for the Football World Cup. The integration of disposable electronics into the packages of consumer or pharmaceutical products is intended to make the products more convenient, simpler and safer. For example, an electronic packing slip connected to a computer with a reader can read out the information for the patient.

Organic electronics captures new application fields
The most advance applications are printed RFID tags, which will soon be suitable for use as electronic product codes for logistic processes, ticketing or security features. They are to replace the bar code, which stores less information. Conductive printing ink offers many more possibilities than just RFID antennas, however. The chip and even the power source can also be printed. The requirements for printing electrically conductive structures are, however, more demanding than for raster-type, classic processes. Organic electronics needs function structures with coating thicknesses as strong as possible (less than 300 nm), homogeneous defect-free surfaces and fine line spacings. It requires accuracy a decimal power higher than for classic print products, which means the performance limits of printing techniques, processes and materials must be redefined. To cut the production costs of individual transponders to less than one cent in the ideal case, i.e. to make low-cost RFIDs attractive for the mass market, they must be produced in continuous roll-to-roll printing processes.

The disadvantage of organic electronics is its lower performance compared with silicon electronics, so it will not force out these components. On the contrary, the applications differ according to requirements. Organic electronic circuits should be thin and flexible, low-cost, simple to manufacture and versatile in use as disposable articles. They open up new prospects in microelectronics wherever electronics is not yet currently used – for example, as intelligent package.

Communicating packages for a high degree of product safety
Multisensor or multimedia packages are therefore also possible in the food sector, where wires are not desired as metal sensors are used to check the packages for contamination. Another application is the wireless newspaper downloaded to a flexible display; conceivable are the so-called e-paper, the electronic game on the cereal package and the intelligent milk package that indicates if the contents are sour. Product safety through communicating packages is even more important in other areas, such as the pharmaceutical industry or diagnostics, where substances must be clearly identified. Paper-based materials like carton board or plastic films are especially suitable for the new technology.

Worldwide research activities are focused on displays which can be flexibly shaped like paper or adapted to any curved surface. Work is in progress in Erlangen on an e-paper technology that uses electrochromic materials for flexible displays and generally for surfaces with electrically switchable colours. The simple design on plastic films and the low power requirement – a battery is sufficient – allow totally new product ideas to be realized: large mobile displays mounted like posters, smaller flexible displays in smart cards or on interactive packages provide the customer with the latest information at the press of a button, printed paper keyboards for educational games on the computer or as advertising medium in the form of a newspaper insert for your own website.

Great market potential for polymer electronics
The Americans Alan Heeger and Alan MacDiarmid and the Japanese Hideki Shirakawa received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000. Their discovery: Certain plastics comprising several molecules chained to each other, the so-called polymers, can conduct electric current. Organic light emitting diodes for monitor screens and illuminated displays are currently the best known components using polymer electronics. Solar cells and sensors are also to be produced on a polymer basis in future. The development of conductive inks permits the manufacture of electronic products by mass printing. This technology therefore represents an interface between the classic printing market and classic silicon electronics.

The companies involved in research & development have created the Organic Electronics Association (OE-A) – a working group of the VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau) – as their international information and communication platform. The OE-A combines science, technology and application and meanwhile has 60 members in Europe and the USA, ranging from research institutes and material manufacturers to system integrators and end users.

The American market research institute IDTech-Ex expects rapid growth rates. According to the institute, the turnover for polymer electronics was only some 650 million US$ in 2005. The volume of this future-orientated technology is to grow to 3 billion US$ by 2009 and 15 billion US$ by 2015.