Is There Such a Thing as RFID Inks That Can Be Printed on Plastic Parts?

By RFID Journal

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Ask The ExpertsIs There Such a Thing as RFID Inks That Can Be Printed on Plastic Parts?
RFID Journal Staff asked 10 years ago

If so, where can I find some?

—Name withheld

———

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking. If you are want to know whether you can print an RFID transponder (microchip and antenna), then the answer is no. There are companies that print the chip and antenna, but these must be on a substrate and would not work on a part. If you are asking whether you can print inks and then use RF to identify a part, there have been some companies that have experimented with resonant inks, but none have been commercially successful. In 2004, for example, we wrote about a company called CrossID (see Firewall Protection for Paper Documents), but it appears to since gone out of business.

In 2013, Colorbit USA, the U.S. division of Japanese company B-Core, introduce B-Core's new color-coded automatic-identification technology to the North American and European markets. The technology, developed and sold by B-Core and currently being employed by a variety of companies in Japan, allows users to track inventory or assets via unique colored patterns, as an alternative to using serialized bar codes or radio frequency identification (see Colorbit USA Debuts Color-based Auto-ID Solution).

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal

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