Applied Nanotech Holdings, Inc. today announced that upon successful conclusion of the second phase of its research project with a leading industrial chemical products company in Japan, it has entered into a continuation of its research and development partnership agreement to develop technical inks.
Technical inks are inks that can be deposited using additive processes such as printing -- in particular inkjet and screen printing. The target markets for technical inks are printed circuit boards, flexible electronics, photovoltaics, displays, communications instrumentation, and RFIDs. This extended project, which began in October 2006, is located at ANI's facilities in Austin, Texas. ANI is providing a team of researchers, laboratory space, equipment and the necessary installations. Funding has increased with each new phase and during the next twelve months, ANI will receive a minimum of $700,000 in funding. This funding is included in the new contracts referred to in the press release of September 25, 2008.
The next phase of the project will focus on transferring the developed technology to volume manufacturing by working closely with potential large users of the inkjetted copper inks.
"During our work on this project, we have identified specific metallic conductive inks, improved the stability of our metallic inks, fine tuned alternative processing methods, made substantial progress in developing a reliable supply chain for nanoparticles, and developed relationships with equipment manufacturers," said Dr. Zvi Yaniv, CEO of Applied Nanotech, Inc.
"We have made outstanding progress in the area of technical inks," said Tom Bijou, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Applied Nanotech Holdings, Inc. "This is an ever expanding area of opportunity for us that we expect to lead to a license agreement and other strategic agreements in the near future."