Electroluminescent printing process enables 3-D objects to glow
The EL components are suitable for enhancing safety in buildings in case of power failures. Other potential applications are displays and watches or the creative design of rooms. The development project was funded with EUR 125,000 by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Foundation for the Environment).
“By means of the innovative production process we developed together with our industry partner, any type of three-dimensional object can be provided with
electroluminescent coatings at low costs,” explained Dr.-Ing. Rainer Kling of the Light Technology Institute of KIT. Usually, the luminescent material is located between two plastic layers in EL carrier foils. But the new printing process enables the electroluminescent layers to be directly printed onto the object without any intermediate carrier. In this way, convex and concave surfaces of various materials, such as paper or plastic, can be made glow.
The different components of the coating, including the electroluminescent and the electrically conductive materials, are applied by a novel pad printing process. The
pad printing machine is equipped with an elastic rubber pad that is easily deformable and, hence, excellently suited for the coating of curved surfaces.
“In this way, it is possible to provide surfaces and even spheres with homogeneous coatings at low costs,” said engineer Elodie Chardin, who works on this research project.
“Homogeneity of the coating of about one tenth of a millimeter in thickness was one of the challenges of this project,” explained the executive engineer of the
industry partner, Elisabeth Warsitz. The process requires a few production steps only and is characterized by a low consumption of resources. By using various
luminescent substances, various colors may be applied to the same surface.
After the successful development of the prototype printing process for electroluminescent layers, the Light Technology Institute of the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology plans further research projects for the optimization of this innovative production process of electroluminescent coatings.
Related articles and links:
www.kit.edu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8xQfvOWBuA
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