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There is an increasing need for embedded sensors integrated into parts and mechanical components, which are often polymer based. We investigated a solution to print capacitive sensors onto elastic polymer sheets to monitor the physical contact with other adjacent components. The capacitive sensors are oriented in an array across the surface of said sheet to monitor the contact and the distance to a neighboring electrically conductive object. In the particularly investigated setup, the sheet is embedded between to metallic (aluminum) plates and the capacitance of the sensor is changed due to the compression of the dielectric material between the interdigital fingers constituting the sensor.

This work presents a thermocouple that is fully screen printed and consists exclusively of carbon black conductors. Two different carbon black inks were printed to form a thermocouple, which has been characterized regarding its output voltage. For reference, each of the carbon black inks was used in combination with gold to form two further thermocouples. These have also been characterized and the output voltage used to predict the output of the associated thermocouple consisting of pure carbon black conductors. The results have been compared with the measurement results and show that the output of the pure carbon black thermocouple is roughly 10% lower than expected.