Conductive Inks Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Rising popularity of product miniaturization - Environmental rules have been enforced by governments across the globe to incentivize industry to replace heavy materials in devices with lighter, more sophisticated alternatives. In addition to this, the desire of consumers for lightweight advanced materials has raised the need for product shrinking in the consumer electronics sector.
• Energy savings, decreased material consumption, and improved practical qualities are all achieved through lightweight design. To increase efficiency and lighten the weight of electronic components, conductive inks are frequently utilized in place of traditional wire and circuit layout. In light of this, the conductive inks market is estimated to witness significant growth.
• Growing usage of Printed Circuit Board (PCBs) - Conductive ink for PCB design is an ink type that has conductive components such as copper, silver, or gold infused into it which is used for printing onto PCB boards to connect neighboring copper features and create a conductor between traces or between traces and components. According to the analysis, 43,000 tons of PCBs might have been generated lawfully in 2019. This growing use of PCBs ultimately positively affects the conductive inks market.
• Conductive inks in medical equipment - Medical conductive inks are specialized inks with electrical conductivity qualities that are utilized in a variety of medical applications such as in the production of diabetes devices such as glucose test strips, which make it easier for people to check their blood glucose levels.
• Moreover, the market demand for medical conductive inks has expanded significantly in recent years, since these inks offer a versatile and affordable alternative for the production of medical devices by enabling the printing of conductive patterns on flexible surfaces. In 2022, the revenue of the worldwide medical device industry was estimated to be USD 512.29 billion.

Challenges

• Exorbitant cost of silver-based conductive inks - Owing to its excellent conductivity, silver is one of the metals used in electronics the most frequently as compared to copper which is less expensive yet more prone to oxidation. The most well-known and popular kind of conductive ink is made of tiny silver flakes, which is said to influence the prices for silver metal leading to higher production costs of conductive inks.
• For instance, more than 75% of the price of flake-based ink is derived from silver, so changes in the price of the raw material have a substantial impact on the price of the ink. Additionally, silver flakes are widely utilized, and are a relatively new addition to the field of nanotechnology, are prized for their high rates of electric conductivity which hinders their widespread application in many electrical equipment.
• Difficult to ensure compatibility with different printing techniques
• Environmental concerns associated with the conductive inks owing to the incorporation of metals