Innovate UK Honors Chloe So for PulpaTronics’ Metal-Free RFID
Chloe So, co-founder and CEO of PulpaTronics, is among the 2026 Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award winners. Her company is developing recyclable RFID tags that replace conventional metal antennas with laser-induced carbon structures formed directly in paper.
Innovate UK Recognizes PulpaTronics’ RFID Technology
Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s national innovation agency, supports promising technology companies with funding, expertise and connections to help move innovations from development toward commercialization.
Innovate UK selected Chloe So for its Women in Innovation programme, highlighting PulpaTronics’ method of transforming paper into conductive circuits using laser technology.
The recognition comes as the London-based company moves from R&D toward commercial trials. PulpaTronics produced sample batches for partner testing in 2025, completed third-party RFID performance benchmarking and is preparing further commercial trials and increased production capacity.
The Laser Turns Paper Into the Antenna
The core innovation lies in the antenna manufacturing process. PulpaTronics does not print or attach a conventional metallic antenna. Instead, a laser modifies selected areas of a carbon-containing paper substrate and converts them into an electrically conductive structure.
The company’s patent describes this process as laser-induced graphene or laser-induced graphitization, LIG. The resulting carbon-based pattern is formed directly in the substrate and can function as an RFID antenna.
This changes the physical construction of the RFID inlay. Instead of combining paper with a separately manufactured metal antenna, part of the paper itself becomes the conductive RF structure.
Hybrid UHF RFID Connects to Existing Infrastructure
PulpaTronics is pursuing two related RFID architectures.
The first is a hybrid UHF RFID tag. Here, the laser-induced carbon antenna replaces the conventional metal antenna, while an RFID IC remains connected to it. This route is being developed to function similarly to conventional UHF RFID tags and provides a potential bridge to existing retail RFID reader infrastructure.
For retailers and system integrators, this is important because the new antenna technology could be introduced without replacing the complete RFID infrastructure already deployed in stores and logistics processes.
PulpaTronics has not publicly confirmed formal EPC Gen2 or ISO 18000-63 certification for the current tags. The relevant development goal is therefore compatibility with existing UHF RFID processes.
Chipless RFID Goes One Step Further
The second development path removes the silicon IC as well.
In PulpaTronics’ chipless RFID architecture, information is encoded in the geometry of conductive LIG resonators created in the paper. Individual resonant structures respond at characteristic frequencies. A dedicated reader analyzes the reflected RF spectrum and identifies the tag from this frequency signature.
This differs fundamentally from conventional UHF RFID, where a reader communicates with an RFID IC. Chipless RFID therefore requires dedicated reader technology, and PulpaTronics has already developed a prototype reader during earlier R&D.
Read Range Moves From Centimeters to Meters
RF performance remains critical for commercial adoption. PulpaTronics has reported increasing scanning range during development from approximately 10 centimeters to around 3 meters.
The company is also moving toward in-store testing and sampling with companies in retail, fashion and packaging. For industrial adoption, decisive parameters will include read reliability, range, orientation tolerance, manufacturing repeatability and integration with existing RFID processes.
Targeting Disposable RFID at Scale
PulpaTronics is targeting markets where RFID tags are produced in very high volumes and often used only briefly, particularly retail, apparel, packaging and logistics. The company estimates that more than 45 billion RFID tags are produced for single-use applications each year.
PulpaTronics estimates that its technology could reduce CO2 emissions by around 60 percent and costs by around 30 percent compared with conventional RFID tag production. It also estimates savings of approximately 2,000 kg of CO2 for every one million tagged products.
The technology addresses RFID sustainability at the component and manufacturing level. The hybrid carbon-antenna architecture could provide a pathway into existing UHF RFID installations, while the longer-term chipless approach explores whether disposable identification labels can ultimately be produced without both metal antennas and RFID ICs.