Jul 28 2010
Light-emitting or energy-converting, intelligent and flexible: customers are eagerly awaiting the products of the future, prototypes of which will be on show during K 2010, the world’s leading plastics and rubber trade fair, to be held in Düsseldorf from 27 October to 3 November.
The conversion of light into energy and electrical conductivity are part of the future for a plastics industry that is undergoing massive change with electronics providing the focus for innovation. Flexible plastics-based solar cells, printed batteries, smart materials or bioanalysis on a plastic chip will be products much in demand in the near future.
“Plastics-based electronics offers new opportunities for technological advances with intelligent processes and materials,” explains Dr. Klaus Hecker, Managing Director of the Frankfurt-based Organic Electronics Association (OE-A). An international working group within the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), the OE-A brings together the activities of the entire value chain of organic and printed electronics. The OE-A’s latest roadmap says that, having made great strides in research and development, more and more branches of this young industry are going into mass production.
Organic and printed electronics and VDMA
“A young technology needs a strong association to represent its interests,” says Andrew Hannah, Vice-Chairman of the OE-A and CEO of Plextronics, USA, adding that for five years now, this highly dynamic network of international companies and research institutes has provided ‘international visibility’, which is of ‘inestimable value’ for the technology and the firms that produce it.
Organic and printed electronics and the plastics industry
Organic and printed electronics has the backing of the plastics industry. “The highly promising combination of plastics and electronics, unimaginable half a century ago, has brought fresh impetus and is opening up new markets,” explains Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association. There is no doubt that polymer electronics can help the EU achieve its ambitious climate targets.
Source: http://www.vdma.org/