X-Ray Vision: ElectriPlast
Featured on the "Hard Hat Area"
of Computer Power User magazine
Reprinted with Publisher's Permission --
for an original reprint of the published edition,
click here
By Kyle Schurman
Hard Hat Area June 2007 •
Vol.7 Issue 6 Page(s) 42-43
in print issue
A New Twist On Plastic
Many products show promise, but they may never move beyond that stage. A great idea isn’t always enough; an inventor has to carry that idea through to the marketplace, convincing users and suppliers that the idea will work and, ultimately, be profitable.
Sometimes when that idea doesn’t grab the attention of the market in the first few years, perseverance becomes almost as important as the good idea. Integral Technologies (http://www.itkg.net/) is hoping its perseverance pays off soon with its ElectriPlast technology. The company first developed ElectriPlast at the beginning of this decade but finally is just beginning to see the possibility of market successes.
What Is It?
ElectriPlast conducts heat and electricity like most metals; some call it a plastic-metal composite. ElectriPlast has hundreds of potential uses, including as an antenna that covers the entire body of a cell phone—like a “jacket” for the phone. Integral calls this jacket PlasTenna and says it will help improve cell phone signal strength and reliability.
Integral formulates ElectriPlast into pellets that contain varying conductive properties. A company selects the properties it wants, and then Integral can mold the pellets into any shape without losing the conductivity. Many ElectriPlast recipes can match the strength and durability of metals, says Integral, but the material weighs 40% less than aluminum and 80% less than copper.
ElectriPlast’s Development
About seven years ago, the idea for ElectriPlast was born while Integral was looking for a way to improve communications between the ground and satellites using a flat antenna design. William Robinson, CEO of Integral, says in developing the flat antenna Integral used galvanized metal, which worked well, but cutting the metal opened it to the possibility of rust. “We decided we should try to find another material that was like a metal but was plastic so that we could keep it sealed,” Robinson says. “There was nothing like that in the marketplace at the time.”
Current options for conductive polymers only work with low-voltage and low-current situations. Increasing the current in the polymer makes the compound brittle. Integral decided to look for other options and ended up developing ElectriPlast.
Most companies use a “salt and pepper” method to add micron-sized metal particles or metal powder particles to resin to create a conductive polymer. But this method can lead to spotty performance because there isn’t a pattern or formula for adding the particles. With ElectriPlast, however, Integral uses several patented methods to more carefully align the tiny metal particles in the resin.
Beyond a cell phone jacket-like antenna, ElectriPlast has many potential uses. A roof rack on a car could become a strong antenna, for example. With ElectriPlast, a heated plastic seat in a car could radiate the warmth throughout its surface, a plastic circuit board wouldn’t need solders or metal connectors, and the material could replace copper wiring in airplanes, making the planes lighter.
Going To Market As
Integral began marketing Electri-Plast several years ago, Robinson says the company made a serious mistake by trying to take the technology directly to end-user companies instead of dealing with the companies that supply those end users. That mistake greatly slowed the potential growth of ElectriPlast. “They want their suppliers to bring them the new invention or the new widget,” Robinson says. “They don’t want to deal with more companies. But now the supply chain is starting to phone us.”
Integral now is awarding licenses (for about $1 per license) to companies that want to use ElectriPlast technologies in their products. “We just want to sell this material on a per-pound basis or a per-kilogram basis,” Robinson says. “Then we’ll have the world figure out what to do with ElectriPlast.”
In the first half of 2007, a third-party facility was completing the chemical and electrical testing of ElectriPlast pellets. Robinson says he hopes Integral will see more patents approved by the end of 2007 and hopes to begin selling pellets by the end of the year. Although he says he’s not quite sure when customers will be able to purchase cell phones with Plas-Tenna, Robinson thinks the long wait for Integral to see its product in the marketplace is nearly over. “We’re talking with the top one or two manufacturers of cell phone bodies,” Robinson says. “They’re putting a lot of pressure on us to get the testing done. The design cycles are 12 to 18 months out, so I’d be thrilled if we made enough impact to see phones [with PlasTenna] in late 2008.”
