PPG Industries' industrial coatings business announced that it has created a dedicated electronic materials group to integrate products and technologies acquired from Spraylat Corporation.

PPG now offers a full line of electrically conductive, resistive and dielectric inks and conductive coatings for radio-frequency interference/electromagnetic interference (RFI/EMI) suppression. These inks and coatings are used in diverse applications such as:

   •  touch-control panels for smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices;

    • interactive and electro-chromic displays;

    biomedical sensors;

     • printed keypads and other industrial membrane switch controls;

     • radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags; and

    other products that require printed circuitry.

Conductive polymer thick film (PTF) inks, which are typically formulated with a metallic flake or powder to carry a charge and bound with a thermoplastic resin, can be printed on polymer-based film, polycarbonate, paper and other substrates. PTF inks are compatible with most printing methods, from flatbed and rotary-screen printing and flexography to rotogravure, as well as tampo (pad) and inkjet printing.