Due to the evolution that the user has experiencing with vehicles, more and more surfaces of the cabin include some type of contact sensor. In this context, the integration of flexible electronics and advanced surface finishes (anti-fingerprint, anti-scratch) are called to be one of the technologies with the greatest growth prospects.
The PLASTFUN project is focused on developing both lines of research, which is allowing the scientific-industrial ecosystem that we have generated to take advanced positions at the international level.
Ibai Santamaría, R&D coordinator of the company PPT-Walter Pack, details his participation in the project in this interview.
What has been the contribution of PPT-Walter Pack in the project?
As an industry partner, PPT’s role has focused on defining specifications in accordance with automotive industry standards, as well as developing and manufacturing a final demonstrator. This will consist of a multi-touch surface around the center console, which will include embedded sensors and lighting using IME (In Mold Electronics) technology and functional surface finishes based on structures at the micro and nano level.
For you, what is the main advance of the project?
The aforementioned IME technology is focusing great technical and economic efforts worldwide, so being at the forefront of such developments is a challenge. In addition, the interaction of electronic elements with novel advanced surfaces, and their industrial scalability represent an important achievement.
And the main challenge, what has it been?
Going from proof of concept to industrial prototype is always a challenge, even more so when it requires the use of means with which we do not coexist on a day-to-day basis, such as inserts manufactured using NIL or NIL in the case of PPT hybrid printed electronics.
Within the framework of the project, techniques and methods necessary for the establishment, on an industrial scale, of a pilot line for the manufacture of plastic injected parts with surfaces that have advanced functions have been developed. What uses do these new techniques have? What sectors and subsectors can they apply to? How can the pilot plant that has been launched help companies?
As leaders in the automotive sector, from PPT we see the pilot plant and the techniques it offers us as an unbeatable opportunity to test concepts that were not possible to materialize with the means available to date. This should give us the necessary impetus to increase both the current product portfolio and our presence in other sectors such as white goods or consumer electronics.
