Voltera

10/13/2026

We’re heading to TechBlick Berlin on October 20-22!

We’re looking forward to connecting with researchers, innovators, and industry colleagues working across printed, flexible, hybrid, and wearable electronics.
If you’ll be there, come say hi 👋! We’d love to chat about your projects, materials, applications, and how tools like NOVA can support rapid prototyping and materials R&D.

📍 Berlin
📅 October 20-22

See you there!

10/12/2026

🥈 Silver or carbon: which makes the better printed strain gauge?

Researchers at Imperial College London investigating low-profile sensors for aerospace structural health monitoring put both materials to the test.

⚙️ Using NOVA, the team printed strain gauge patterns onto flexible substrates, allowing them to experiment with long, thin traces and different sensor geometries. NOVA’s vacuum table helped keep the flexible substrates flat during printing.

The silver-based gauges delivered low resistance, repeatable measurements, and survived 1,000 loading cycles. Carbon-based gauges, meanwhile, had much higher resistance but showed considerably greater strain sensitivity in bending tests — and could even distinguish the direction of strain. 🔬📈

Read the research: Philibert, M., Pan, Y., Aliabadi, F. M. H., & Sharif Khodaei, Z. (2026). Direct ink writing of flexible strain gauges for IoT-enabled structural health and usage monitoring of aerospace composites. Smart Materials and Structures, 35(9), 095011. https://hubs.ly/Q04zdtbf0

10/09/2026

What happens when electronics meet biology? 🧬⚡

Bioelectronics brings together materials science, electronics, biology, and engineering to create devices that can interact with the human body, from wearable sensors and ECG electrodes to soft actuators and implantable devices.

With NOVA, you can prototype soft and flexible circuits using functional inks and biocompatible substrates, helping bring bioelectronic concepts from the lab bench to working prototypes.

Explore bioelectronics applications, materials, substrates, and more: https://hubs.ly/Q04zddy70

10/08/2026

Sometimes, less material can do more. 🧪

Researchers have found that sparse layers of silver nanoparticles around 10 nm in diameter can significantly improve the electrochemical conversion of CO₂ into carbon monoxide.

🌱 By optimizing both particle size and loading, the team achieved nearly 100% Faradaic efficiency for CO over 100 hours. They also showed that changing the reaction at the anode could cut the process’s electricity demand by more than 30%.

Read more: Tandava, V. S. R. K., Große, C., Bagchi, D., Zhu, Z., Ghosh, S., Hausmann, J. N., Walter, C., Anzorena, R. S., Jimenez, C. E., Cobos‐Becerra, Y. L., Fletcher, J. C. Q., Sontheimer, T., Schwarze, M., Dau, H., Driess, M., Bär, M., & Menezes, P. W. (2026). Decoupling the Size and Loading Effects in Silver Nanoparticles for Efficient Paired Carbon Dioxide and Formaldehyde Electrolysis. Advanced Functional Materials. https://hubs.ly/Q04z9L-g0

10/07/2026

🧵 Embroidery isn’t just decorative; it can make wearable electronics tougher.

Wearable sensors have to survive bending, stretching, repeated use, and even washing. One way to build that resilience directly into the device? Embroidery.

Researchers developed embroidered force-sensitive resistors using conductive threads and found that the textile-based sensors could tolerate mechanical deformation and laundering while still delivering strong touch sensitivity. 🔬👕

The study also showed that stitch density plays an important role in balancing conductivity, sensitivity, and mechanical performance. ⚙️✨

Read the study: Dontha, B., Swearingen, K., Swearingen, S., Thrane, S. E., & Kiourti, A. (2022). Wearable Sensors Based on Force-Sensitive Resistors for Touch-Based Collaborative Digital Gaming. Sensors, 22(1), 342. https://hubs.ly/Q04zddcv0

10/06/2026

🧪 TPU is a familiar substrate in wearable electronics — but what happens when you put it inside the conductive ink itself?

Researchers at ETH Zurich developed a flexible capacitive pressure sensor using NOVA.

They printed the conductive silver features with a TPU-based silver conductive ink, allowing the team to prototype the sensor geometry on a flexible TPU substrate before transferring it onto fabric.

The resulting sensor could measure pressures up to 20 kPa and remained functional through more than 5,500 loading cycles. 💪🔬

Read the research: Papaefstathiou, M., Elgendi, M., & Menon, C. (2026). Garment-integrated silver-based interdigitated capacitive pressure sensor fabricated by microdispensing for elbow motion detection. IEEE Sensors Letters, 10(10), 6010604–6010607. https://hubs.ly/Q04zdcBk0.

10/05/2026

Meet the self-powered smart textile — a shirt that cools you in the sun and heats you when you tap it. 🌡️

Researchers at University of Illinois built a textile using zirconium oxide (ZrO2) nanocomposite fibers that does two things at once: reflects 96% of solar radiation for passive cooling, and generates electricity from your own movement via the triboelectric effect. ⚡

Tap or bend the fabric, and that motion-generated voltage automatically triggers on-demand Joule heating — switching the textile from cooling mode to warming mode with no external sensors or switches. 🔄

Read the full research: Y. Y. Choi, P. Karua, M. Salauddin, and L. Cai, “ Intrinsic Coupling of Radiative Cooling and Triboelectric Responses in Dual-Function ZrO2 Nanocomposites for Adaptive Thermoregulation.” Advanced Science 13, no. 51 (2026): e76121. https://hubs.ly/Q04yw9Sn0

10/02/2026

5 to 10 times cheaper than silver and 40 times less carbon footprint. Meet copper nano ink. 🔬

We sat down with Copprint co-founder Ofer Shochet to talk about their conductive copper nanoparticle inks — and the sustainability numbers are striking: copper's carbon footprint is 40x lower than silver, and it delivers the same electrical performance using 100 to 1,000x less material. 🌱

The inks sinter in seconds at 150-300°C, support fine geometries for wearables and IoT devices, and are compatible with NOVA, making it easy to go from rapid prototyping straight to large-scale manufacturing using the same process. ⚡

Since copper is far more abundant than silver, it also means more supply stability and lower cost volatility long-term. 💰

Read the full interview: https://hubs.ly/Q04yvY210

10/01/2026

Light that glows without a single LED? That's electroluminescence at work. ✨

Electroluminescent displays use phosphor materials that light up when exposed to an alternating current, creating a thin, uniform, flexible glow instead of relying on traditional backlighting or bulbs. 💡

The global EL displays market was valued at $1.2 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $2.5 billion by 2033, growing at a 9.5% CAGR. 📈

Explore the application: https://hubs.ly/Q04yvKTS0

Discover electroluminescent display applications that use a variety of phosphor materials on flexible substrates such as paper and PET, as well as rigid substrates such as glass.

09/30/2026

Already have a board with existing traces or a template you're working from? V-One doesn't need a blank slate. 🔧

Because V-One dispenses solder paste additively, it's great for printing addons onto template boards or boards with existing features — no need to design and fabricate a whole new board from scratch. ⚡

Add a component pad, extend a trace, or prep a spot for a part you didn't originally plan for — right on top of what's already there. 🎯

Small addition, same board. That's the flexibility of additive dispensing. 🛠️

See how we dispensed solder paste on a factory-fabricated PCB: https://hubs.ly/Q04yvyL50