At this year’s nano tech 2026 in Tokyo, Tangho Green Canada Inc. and its research partners are showcasing something unprecedented: a flexible 4×4 pressure sensor array printed on a compostable paper-like substrate. This project – the world’s first public demo of a dynamic printed circuit on Tangho NanoPaper™ – marks not only a technological milestone but also the commercial launch of NanoPaper™ as a new sustainable electronic material. In this deep dive, we explore how the “electronic skin” sensor works and why NanoPaper™ could be a game-changer for environmentally conscious electronics engineering.
The demo device is a 4×4 force sensor grid printed using conventional thick-film techniques. Silver electrodes were screen-printed onto the NanoPaper™ substrate to form rows and columns, and a carbon-based sensing layer was added on top. When pressure is applied to any point on the grid, the carbon layer at that location changes its electrical resistance, allowing the underlying electrode matrix to detect the touch. The result is a mapped output of force – essentially a 16-pixel pressure image that updates in real time as you press on it. A small microcontroller reads the varying signals and streams a live 2D force map to a laptop via USB, so expo visitors can literally see their touch translated into a digital visualization.
This interactive sensor sheet has been nicknamed an “electronic skin” because it mimics the way our skin senses pressure. With a thin form factor and soft flexibility, it can conform to curved surfaces – in the demo’s case, it’s presented as a touch-sensitive pad for a robotic finger. Notably, all of this is achieved on Tangho NanoPaper™ instead of the usual plastic film, without sacrificing responsiveness or durability. The development was a collaborative effort: Tangho and the University of Waterloo’s WIN provided the NanoPaper™ substrate optimized for printed electronics, and Yamagata University’s INOEL team designed and printed the sensor itself with their screen-printing expertise.
Tangho NanoPaper™ is a new type of flexible substrate made from cellulose nanofibers – essentially, natural materials are refined to the nanoscale and assembled into paper. Unlike regular paper, which is too rough and unstable for high-tech circuitry, NanoPaper™ has an ultra-smooth surface and high thermal stability suitable for printed electronics. In fact, it was engineered to support fine conductive traces and ink adhesion similar to what you’d achieve on glossy polymer films. Researchers were pleasantly surprised that a plant-based paper could deliver print quality “combining very good printability with a sustainable materials profile”. In other words, NanoPaper™ approaches the performance of conventional flexible substrates while being eco-friendly.
Today, most flexible circuits and printed sensors use petroleum-based plastic films like PET (polyester) or polyimide (often known by the DuPont™ Kapton® brand) as the base material. These materials are dimensionally stable and smooth, but they contribute to electronic waste and are not biodegradable. Tangho NanoPaper™ offers an alternative: it’s derived from renewable biomass and is designed to be compostable after use. Yet it still handles the demands of manufacturing – for example, it can endure the heat of curing ovens and the pressure of screen printing without warping or degrading. By swapping plastic for NanoPaper™, manufacturers could drastically reduce the environmental footprint of devices like wearables, sensors, or smart packaging, especially for short-lived or disposable electronics.
One reason this demo is turning heads is that it represents a full journey from university lab research to a market-ready product. Tangho’s NanoPaper™ originated in nanomaterials labs (leveraging years of R&D on nanocellulose film technology), but it’s now available as a product that anyone can order and test. “From a materials perspective, NanoPaper™ lets us take everything we’ve learned about high-performance nanocellulose films and plug it directly into real devices,” says Dr. Leonardo Simon, our NanoPaper™ research and development partner at the University of Waterloo. His point: the lessons from the lab have been embodied in NanoPaper™, and those properties are being validated in a tangible device at nano tech 2026.
Crucially, Tangho has scaled up production just enough to supply early adopters. The first commercial batch of NanoPaper™ is being released in A4 sheet format, with limited quantities now available to purchase through Tangho’s website. This transition from a “lab-only” material to an off-the-shelf sustainable substrate means that any engineer or product designer interested in greener electronics can get their hands on NanoPaper™ and start building. Tangho is actively seeking pilot projects and collaborators in fields like wearables, robotics, medical sensors, and smart packaging to explore what NanoPaper™ can do in real-world applications.
The company’s presence at nano tech 2026 – at booth 1W-C19 alongside the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology – is a call to action for industry players to come see the technology and spark new partnerships.
The larger implication of Tangho’s NanoPaper™ demo is that it challenges the electronics industry to rethink substrate materials in the context of sustainability. Electronic waste is often seen as a recycling problem, but innovations like NanoPaper™ show that it’s also a design problem – if we design electronics with compostable, low-impact components from the start, we can reduce waste before it happens. By replacing non-degradable plastics with naturally derived nanofiber paper, we inch closer to circular design in electronics, where components can safely return to the earth or be recycled when a device is discarded.
For the technical community, the takeaway is that environmentally friendly electronics can also be high-performance. The successful operation of a multi-sensor circuit on NanoPaper™ demonstrates that green materials can meet the rigorous demands of functional devices. It’s an invitation to innovators to experiment with these materials and push the boundaries further.
Tangho NanoPaper™ Press Kit: To explore technical specifications, demos, and media from the nano tech 2026 launch, visit our press kit. If you’re interested in trying NanoPaper™ in your projects, you can purchase our NanoPaper™ evaluation kit or get in touch with Tangho for collaboration opportunities. Together, we can develop the next generation of electronics that are as sustainable as they are smart.