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Engineers Demonstrate World's First Fully Recyclable Printed Electronics
The new technique reclaims nearly 100% of all-carbon-based transistors while retaining future functionality of the materials
Engineers at Duke University have developed the world’s first fully recyclable printed electronics. By demonstrating a crucial and relatively complex computer component — the transistor — created with three carbon-based inks, the researchers hope to inspire a new generation of recyclable electronics to help fight the growing global epidemic of electronic waste.
The work appeared online April 26 in the journal Nature Electronics.
“Silicon-based computer components are probably never going away, and we don’t expect easily recyclable electronics like ours to replace the technology and devices that are already widely used,” said Aaron Franklin, Associate Dean for Doctoral Education and the Addy Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke. “But we hope that by creating new, fully recyclable, easily printed electronics and showing what they can do, that they might become widely used in future applications.”
As people worldwide adopt more electronics into their lives, there’s an ever-growing pile of discarded devices that either don’t work anymore or have been cast away in favor of a newer model. According to a United Nations estimate, less than a quarter of the millions of pounds of electronics thrown away each year is recycled. And the problem is only going to get worse as the world upgrades to 5G devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand.
Part of the problem is that electronic devices are difficult to recycle. Large plants employ hundreds of workers who hack at bulky devices. But while scraps of copper, aluminum and steel can be recycled, the silicon chips at the heart of the devices cannot.
In the new study, Franklin and his laboratory demonstrate a completely recyclable, fully functional transistor made out of three carbon-based inks that can be easily printed onto paper or other flexible, environmentally friendly surfaces. Carbon nanotubes and graphene inks are used for the semiconductors and conductors, respectively. While these materials are not new to the world of printed electronics, Franklin says, the path to recyclability was opened with the development of a wood-derived insulating dielectric ink called nanocellulose.