A Lot of Research Opportunities Abound in the Printing Industry- Mr. Kofi J. Brobbey

A PhD candidate at Abo Akademi University in Finland, Mr. Kofi J. Brobbey, has called for a multidisciplinary research in the printing industry to find ways of using environmentally friendly materials for printing. For instance, he noted that researchers in the sciences could find possible ways of using conductive inks instead of the traditional ones used for the printing industry. Mr. Brobbey observed that many of the innovations of the world were recombination of existing ideas. Mr. Brobbey made the call when he gave a presentation on “Printing Technology, 3D Printing and Functional Printing, the Role of Physics” at the School of Physical Sciences Lecture Series. Mr. Brobbey who is also an alumnus of UCC noted that printing technologies had evolved since the invention of printing machine. He said that currently the printing revolution has moved from just printing on paper to materials such as glass, metal, plastic and ceramic. Mr. Brobbey said the current technology being used are Non-Impact Impact Printing Technology and these include electrophotography, inkjet, and 3D Printing. Explaining the 3D Printing Technique, Mr. Brobbey said 3D formed part of the addictive manufacturing which involved fusing materials layer by layer. He said using 3D technique saves cost and also make printing on complex structures possible. Another printing technique he mentioned was functional printing which Mr. Brobbey described as the next industrial revolution. He said the decline of paper printing resulted in a boom of functional printing. He explained that “functional printing technologies are used to produce items whose basic function is not related to uses in the traditional printing technique”. Examples of such items are sensors, batteries, antennae, microfluidics, active and intelligent packaging applications and pharmaceuticals. The Dean of the School of Physical Sciences, Prof. David Kofi Essumang, said that the School partnered the University Printing Press to organise the May edition of the lecture. He said the lecture was the beginning of the School’s plans to reach out to industry with solutions to challenges facing their operations. “Industry and academia need to depend on each other to improve the services and products in the market,” he added. He said the School was prepared to provide all forms of assistance to the University Printing Press and other industries in the country.