Imagine a plastic car dashboard where the buttons, lights, and touch sensors are baked directly into the material rather than glued on as separate parts. This project makes that process cheaper and greener by ensuring the parts can be recycled and don't break during manufacturing. It also adds a 'feel' to the touch surfaces, so you know a button was pressed even if you are wearing gloves.
Current in-mold electronics suffer from low overall yields due to a 85% overmolding success rate, poor recyclability of multi-material compounds, and a lack of haptic feedback for users wearing gloves.
A next-generation manufacturing process for complex 3D plastic parts with embedded electronics, multimodal sensors, and recyclable materials.
If you are a car interior manufacturer dealing with complex assembly of dashboards and control panels — this project developed a way to integrate electronics and haptic feedback into a single injection molding process. This reduces the need to assemble separate components and improves the user experience for drivers wearing gloves.
If you are a control panel producer dealing with harsh environments and the need for condition monitoring — this project developed weather-resistant, multi-functional plastic parts with embedded sensors. This allows for more durable and integrated monitoring systems in energy generation fields.
If you are an appliance brand dealing with the difficulty of recycling multi-material electronic products — this project developed a material concept that provides inherent recyclability by design. This ensures your smart products meet European sustainability and circularity policies.
Based on available project data, the current overmolding process has a yield of 85% at best, leading to high tooling and process optimization costs. MULTIMOLD aims to reduce these costs by making the manufacturing process more robust.
The project focuses on improving the yield of injection molding and overmolding processes, which are standard industrial methods, to make them more viable for complex electronic products.
Based on available project data, there is no specific information regarding patents or licensing terms provided in the summary.
Yes, the project specifically targets European society and policy on sustainability and circularity by developing a material concept that allows for recyclability by design.
The technology integrates functional printing, lamination, and injection molding into a more streamlined process to replace the assembly of separate components.
The consortium is heavily industry-driven with a 62% industry ratio, comprising 8 industrial partners, 3 research centers, and 1 university. With 13 partners across 6 European countries (AT, BE, DE, FR, IT, LT) and 4 SMEs involved, the project is well-positioned for commercial translation and industrial validation.
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