A few weeks ago I learned about advances in graphene printing using its conductive properties to print contacts onto flexible materials like plastic and fabric. The research holds promise for wearable tech since graphene is flexible yet durable but it felt to me like it wasn’t quite time to get excited since the rest of the circuit still had to be constructed from standard three dimensional products leads, and in the example that was being discussed graphene was used to print piano keys on a flexible plastic sheet, but thin metal conduits still had to be connected to speakers to make the thing usable. It was a step, but not the solution.

I should have known better than to doubt. As so often happens in tech before you blink someone has solved the next problem, and researchers at the Beijing Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry have announced their success printing circuits on fabric, plastic and even a leaf. Using a special combination of gallium and indium the team has created a metal which remains liquid at room temperature. Once the liquid is shot through a standard inkjet printer head it oxidizes in air, allowing it to adhere to the print surface.

The combination of these technologies could lead to a revolution in printed circuitry – think of LED wallpaper or RFID embedded in packaging, at the very least it will allow for simple test prints of circuit designs. Engineers could design a complex circuit and hit print as easily as you would for a document, then crumple it up for the trash if it doesn’t work. Engineering will change the way audio and video did when digital editing became the norm. Circuits could be embedded in glass, plastic and fabric which opens the door to ideas both cool (think of the holographic swipe display in Minority Report) to fun (affordable light-up clothes and again, swipe displays!)

Researchers have been working on the idea of flexible printed circuitry for years but finding the right “ink” has been elusive. While several inks have conducting properties, some need to be heated to temperatures that would incinerate any base material. In current tests the print heads can be moved across the substrate or sprayed over a mask to produce a pattern but in time advances in jet printing methods could open doors that haven’t even been thought of yet.