Silver has come off the boil, but not far enough to change the arithmetic for printed electronics. Silver December futures opened at $66.44 an ounce on 9 September, according to Yahoo Finance, which put the metal 59.8% higher than a year earlier. That is well down from the 173.3% year-on-year gain recorded on 14 May, but it still leaves the dominant conductor in printed electronics far more expensive than it was a year ago.

A week earlier, IDTechEx principal technology analyst Dr Conor O’Brien set out where he expects that pressure to lead. In an article published on 2 September, drawing on the firm’s report Conductive Inks Market 2026-2036, he wrote that by the end of the decade pure silver-flake ink will fall to 32% of demand. Other ink types take share in applications such as RFID, basic circuits, printed heaters and touch sensors.

Why silver is hard to replace

Silver flake remains the default because it conducts well, tolerates air and cures at temperatures that plastic substrates survive. Each alternative gives something up. IDTechEx notes that copper metal costs more than 100 times less than silver, but copper oxidises, which is why copper inks need protective chemistry or controlled curing. Carbon black inks are commoditised and cheap but far less conductive, and IDTechEx sees carbon nanotubes mainly in hybrid formulations.

Hybrids are where much of the commercial activity sits. IDTechEx highlights silver-copper formulations alongside pure copper inks. It says copper inks benefit from the growing emphasis on sustainability, because copper biodegrades far more readily than silver, and it points to early adoption in RFID tags.

Reading the price signal

For a converter printing antennas or heater traces, the day’s futures price matters less than whether expensive silver persists long enough to justify requalifying a product on a different ink. A year-on-year gain near 60%, months after the spring peak, suggests that it has. Yahoo Finance also flagged an anticipated Federal Reserve rate rise as a further weight on precious metals, which could narrow the gap between silver and its cheaper rivals in the months ahead.

These figures should be read with care. The Yahoo Finance numbers are futures prices on single days. The 32% figure comes from a paid IDTechEx report we have not read, and the public article does not say what share silver flake holds today, so the size of the shift cannot be calculated from the published material.

What we’re watching

  • Whether silver holds near current levels after the Federal Reserve decision that Yahoo Finance highlighted.
  • Qualification announcements for copper or silver-copper inks in RFID and printed heaters, the segments IDTechEx expects to move first.
  • How pricing continues to feed through to suppliers, as covered in our earlier silver conductive ink market update.