SUINK project: Horizon Europe project aiming to create sustainable self-charging power systems developed by INKjet printing.
Horizon Europe project launched on September 1st, 2022 to create sustainable self-charging power systems developed by INKjet printing. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and innovation programme under grant agreement N. 101070112.
The main objective of SUINK is to design and implement sustainable, flexible and printable self-charging power systems (SCPS) able to supply power to a widerange of sensors. This SCPS will be formed by sustainable elements:
1) a piezoelectric energy generator to harvest electrical energy from mechanicalvibrations based on pìezoelectric PLA,
2) a rectifying system as a connection circuit with 3) a fully printed biobased supercapacitor as energy storage component.
The overall solution will be based on the proper combination of biobased conductive, dielectric and piezoelectric inks that will be applied by inkjet printing, a high throughput and easy-to-implement process, on biobased flexible substrates. The printed substrates will be implemented in the following
- A PLA seat (temperature sensor)
- A PLA bracket located inside the car, specifically in the windscreen of the car (temperature/humidity sensor)
- A thermoset composite (strain sensor)
SUINK will consider sustainability criteria from design to the end-of-life of products, implementing new recyclability and reusability protocols.