Smart Inks

Anti-counterfeit, product safety monitoring, brand protection are just few of the buzz words/phrases attracting much of the recent attention in the world of industry and commerce. Interestingly, successful development of relevant productions heavily relies on the technical advancements in smart, functional speciality inks. In many cases, the heart of the technology is functional speciality colorants, whilst in practice, formulation of workable, smart inks containing such colorants is no less challenging. This paper gives a review of the existing smart "ink" systems and an overview of the directions for future development.