Materials for Gravure Printing of Chemical Gas Sensors

From 2012-2015 the world’s first printed amperometric gas sensors were developed at KWJ Engineering Inc. as the subject of an NSF SBIR. The patented technology was used to found SPEC-sensor LLC and obtain commercial funds. More than 1 million sensors have been sold and SPEC-sensor LLC is today a viable and growing stand-alone company. The next challenge is to grow sensor production output to 10-100 million chemical gas sensors and enter new markets that require higher volume manufacturing. The production volume increase can only come from advanced manufacturing such as provided by Gravure roll-to-roll (R2R) printing. The challenges to print gas sensors in high volumes include but are not limited to: developing new composite materials that build order of magnitude thinner sensors, yet also are compatible with the R2R printing and lamination processes, and deliver the appropriate sensor chemistry for optimal performance. This miniaturization and process compatibility, without loss in performance, will bridge the cost-performance gap and enable new widespread societal uses. Advanced volume manufacturing enables the now important and useful AGS sensor to expand into new markets and produce benefits for society in new innovative wearable and embedded-infrastructure products that increase human safety, health, and wellbeing.