CIDETEC Surface Engineering continues to expand its Printed Electronics Hub with the installation of a conveyorized hot-air dryer with IR lamps from the manufacturer INO. This new acquisition strengthens our available infrastructure for the development, validation, and scaling of printed electronics technologies.
Compared to conventional oven drying, conveyorized hot-air drying with IR lamps technology offers significant advantages for manufacturing processes. Its ability to apply rapid, localized heating significantly reduces process times, improves energy efficiency, and facilitates the integration of drying into continuous production lines, thereby helping to increase productivity and process reproducibility.
The choice of INO's equipment responds to very specific technical criteria. The conveyorized hot-air dryer is capable of reaching temperatures up to 180°C and providing baking times of up to 10 minutes in a heat zone of just 2 meters. This combination is key for our Printed Electronics Hub, as it allows us to simulate the drying conditions of industrial facilities—which typically use longer conveyors—in a laboratory environment. Added to this is the precise temperature regulation, the energy efficiency of the system, and the track record of the manufacturer, a European company with over 35 years of experience in screen printing machinery and specialized in printed electronics solutions.
The new system is integrated into an infrastructure that already includes screen printing machines, an automated pick & place system, and a Niebling high-pressure thermoforming machine. This allows us to cover the different stages of the printed electronics device manufacturing process ever more comprehensively. These capabilities are perfectly complemented by our expertise in printed electronics and in the design of printed elements, such as heaters and various types of sensors.
With this addition, the Printed Electronics Hub provides an even more complete technological environment to develop and validate new concepts, manufacture functional demonstrators, and scale technologies under conditions representative of the industrial environment.
In this way, CIDETEC Surface Engineering continues to strengthen its ability to support companies in developing printed electronics-based solutions for sectors such as automotive, consumer electronics, home appliances, energy, and smart packaging, accelerating the transfer of these cutting-edge technologies to the market.
