There is a lot of chatter about three interesting opportunities for printers: security printing, printed electronics and lenticular printing.

By Mark Smith

T-Ink in New York has been very active in this area, having produced examples with Hallmark, MeadWestvaco, NewsAmerica and Sears. Polymertronics in the U.K. is developing a process for embedding lights into substrates for ink-jet printers.

For the printed electronics industry, ink-jet printing has become a leading production process, but may present challenges in scaling up to volume production. Screen printing was used for much of the pioneering work and continues to be a contender, although it has weaknesses (e.g. printing fine lines, productivity). Flexo is considered a very promising technology.