I-Corps: Air-Stable and Low-Cost Metal Inks for Wearable Electronics and Sensors

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the commercialization of a new metal ink technology in the markets of wearable electronics and sensors which depend heavily on printable and conductive inks in scalable manufacturing of electronic circuits on flexible materials. In today's society wearable electronics and sensors have found increasing applications in daily life, especially for human health monitoring and point-of-care diagnostics via wireless interfaces with smartphones. The market for wearable electronics and sensors is forecast to reach about $52 billion by 2020, with the market revenue being expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of about 16%. Findings from the customer discovery in this project will identify the market opportunity of the technology and develop the business model, leading to potential start-up business, technology licensing, and importantly, a business plan suitable for the product prototyping and evaluation by industrial partners and review by potential investors. The project will also train students and researchers for their better preparation to be entrepreneurially competitive, and to enhance their understanding of what it takes to pursue the entrepreneurship and the technology commercialization. This I-Corps project focuses on determining the commercialization feasibility of a new metal nanoink technology which can enable manufacturers of flexible and wearable electronics and sensors. While the current use of silver inks has dominated the printable electronics and wearable sensors industries, the high-temperature processing requirement is inadequate for common temperature-sensitive flexible materials and the propensity of metal oxidation or mobility degrades the printed electronics. To address the pain of high-temperature and high-cost manufacturing with a high failure rate, the core technology in this project features an air-stable and low-cost metal ink formulation with an innovative low-temperature processing capability for manufacturing wearable electronics and sensors on flexible materials. To be competitive in the global markets of conductive inks and wearable sensors or electronics, key questions in the customer discovery focus on understanding the driving force for the targeted market, the value proposition specific to customer segments, the cost breakdown related to the manufacturing process, the decision-making process in adopting new technologies for manufacturing and packaging, and the major players and influencers in the manufacturing or product ecosystem.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.