Stepping Toward Disposable Electronics: Integrated Papertronic Techniques

Humanity’s excessive production of material waste poses a critical environmental threat, and the problem is only escalating, especially in the past few decades with the rapid development of powerful electronic tools and persistent consumer desire to upgrade to the newest available technology. The poor disposability of electronics is especially an issue for the newly arising field of single-use devices and sensors, which are often used to evaluate human health and monitor environmental conditions, and for other novel applications.

Though impressive in terms of function and convenience, the use of conventional electronic components in these applications would inflict an immense surge in waste and result in greater costs. The primary objective of this project is to develop an all-paper-based system, named integrated papertronics here, that can work eco-friendly, cost-effectively, and self-sustainability.

All electronic components will be paper-based and integrated on paper-based printed circuit boards (PCBs), innovatively providing a realistic and practical solution for green and renewable electronic platforms. Innovative combinations of synthetic inks and the fluidic wicking properties of paper will allow the development of electronic components and their integration into paper.

The rough and porous texture of paper, which has made it difficult to print effective components, will be beneficial for our proposed functionalization technique of paper with synthetic inks. Paper’s remarkable characteristics of folding and stacking will enable a multi-layered PCB with many components integrated within a small area. Via mature manufacturing processes such as wax-printing, ink-injection, and screen-printing, the integrated papertronic system can be readily batch-fabricated.

Knowledge gained from this project will benefit scientific education. Findings will first be disseminated within the discipline through local and international conferences and journal publications; then they will be distributed through educational venues maximizing the project’s reach and impact.

This NSF project aims to create a disposable and green device platform by developing an entirely paper-based system through system integration of paper-based electronic components in the paper PCB. We envision that the proposed innovation will provide a novel strategy that revolutionizes the next-generation disposable device fabrication and applications.

The proposed work will be multidisciplinary by nature, connecting paper-based technology to synthetic materials science through innovative research that is expected to generate a wealth of new scientific and technological results with significant and transformative potential. First, a PCB with densely concentrated, very conductive metallic wires will be developed on paper for great-performing integrated circuits (Aim 1).

Then, we will create fully paper-based electronic components that can be easily integrated into paper systems (Aim 2). Finally, we will develop a fully self-sustaining all-paper-based system to demonstrate its practical efficacy for actual disposable IoT applications (Aim 3). The immediate potential benefits of the proposed research are (i) the project will develop, for the first time, an electronic platform for the next-generation of green electronics and will open new vistas for the disposable internet of things (IoT), (ii) the work will create a new manufacturing paradigm for paper, which offers flexible and disposable properties while enabling low-cost fabrication of components and PCBs, and (iii) it will result in a barrier-transcending advancement in integrated paper-based electronics along with the development of practical batch fabrication techniques.

The project outcomes will address grand challenges in sensing, electronics, materials, and power sectors critical to U.S. security and competitiveness. The results will enable papertronics that will augment human capabilities and well-being by providing a tool that will improve many easy-to-use and simple healthcare and environmental monitoring devices.

Furthermore, this work will provide an excellent way to reduce the dramatic increase in electronic waste. Therefore, the proposed research has potentially far-reaching social and economic effects linked to health and environment monitors, human-machine interfaces, medical therapies, and disease diagnostics.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.