11 MADE in PA 2011
first look
“We can make inks to print on any surface, allowing you to print metal on anything that has a circuit – copper, gold, silver, and so forth,” McCullough said. “This is something that’s never been done before to our knowledge. Before this technology, to try heat ink onto plastic would just melt the plastic.”
The Metalonix ink contains actual metal atoms,
unlike competitive inks on the market that contain either nanoparticles or metal flakes, neither of which are present in the Metalonix inks. As a result, the Metalonix inks act as a bulk metal, yielding benefits such as: • High conductivity – actually three times the conductiv- ity of competitive metallic inks. • Low conversion temperatures – allowing printing on a variety of surfaces, including flexible plastics. • Instant conversion times – meaning that the Metalonix inks convert to metal in seconds. • Precision printing – because they are not limited by particle size, Metalonix inks can be deposited in smaller sizes. • Speed printing – meaning the inks can be deposited by various printing methods, including roll-to-roll and ink-jet.
Metalonix received a grant from the Pennsylvania Nano- Materials Commercialization Center to help develop the technology, and move it closer to large-scale commercial- ization. Since then, the company has grown from one to five employees. Metalonix also won honors as Most Prom- ising Company and Best Presentation at the LOPE-C 2011 Conference earlier this year.
McCullough said Metalonix has met with numerous po- tential customers and partners in various markets, such as RFID, printed circuit board, and printed memory, re- ceiving uniformly positive responses across the board. “The most obvious applications for a metal ink manu-
facturer are within the printed electronic industry,” he said. “The key is that we fulfill the market’s biggest pain point, thus leading to a huge opportunity. There are endless pos- sibilities to the uses of Metalonix’s metallic inks.”
For more information on the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center and its portfolio of early stage companies, go to
www.pananocenter.org 4
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