DUSSELDORF, Germany, April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Plextronics, Inc. and Coatema hosted a masterclass as part of the Printed Electronics Europe tradeshow being held this week in Dusseldorf, Germany. The class, "Thin Film Photovoltaics: Principles, Technologies, Markets," was held on Monday, April 4 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Coatema's facility in Dormagen, Germany.

The masterclass included manufacturing demonstrations on Coatema's roll-to-roll coating lines, including the Deskcoater, Click&Coat(TM), and Linecoater. The attendees at the event had the opportunity to witness various deposition steps in the manufacture of organic photovoltaic modules.  Plextronics' Plexcore© PV ink system, which includes the photoactive layer and the hole transport layer, were slot die coated and the silver electrode was rotary screen printed.  

In addition to the demonstrations, technical presentations were given by Mary Boone, Plextronics Director of Inks Business Development, and Dr. Klaus-Peter Crone from Coatema.  IDTechEx Technology Analyst Dr. Harry Zervos was also at the masterclass to share market insight with attendees.

In addition to the masterclass, Boone will be delivering a second presentation, "OLED Technology --Where it's going and how to get there", at the main conference on Wednesday, April 6 at 3:10 EST. Her talk will focus on evaluating the OLED lighting and display markets and the solution processing technology driving those markets to commercialization.

Printed Electronics Europe is expected to draw more than 1200 attendees from 30 countries.  

About Plextronics, Inc.

Plextronics, Inc. is an international technology company that specializes in printed lighting, display, solar and other organic electronics.  Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, the company's focus is on organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and organic solar technology, specifically the conductive inks and process technologies that enable those and other similar applications.

The privately held company was founded in 2002 as a spinout from Carnegie Mellon University, based upon conductive polymer technology developed by Dr. Richard McCullough.  Since then, Plextronics scientists have refined and further developed this technology to deliver exceptional performance for printed electronics.  The company is ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 certified. For more information about Plextronics, visit www.plextronics.com.

About Coatema

Coatema Coating Machinery offers mechanical engineering and R&D for coating, printing and laminating plants for R2R and S2S applications. 

For more than 35 years Coatema has been delivering solutions to a wide range of markets including prepreg, flexible electronics, renewable energy, converting, technical textiles, paper, medical, and membrane casting. Coatema offers lab units, pilot plants and entire turn-key production solutions for coating, printing and laminating of flexible or rigid substrates.

Another key service of Coatema is custom made machinery for scale-up processes.

Furthermore Coatema offers a company owned R&D center in Dormagen with 11 different lab and pilot lines and a production line with a working width of 2000 mm for research, process development or even toll coating purposes. An annual international coating symposium completes Coatema's manifold range of services.

SOURCE Plextronics, Inc.