Stepping Toward Disposable Electronics: Integrated Papertronic Techniques

人类过度生产的物质废物对环境构成了严重的威胁，而且这个问题只会越来越严重，特别是在过去的几十年里，随着强大的电子工具的迅速发展和消费者不断升级到最新技术的愿望。电子产品的可丢弃性差，对于新出现的一次性设备和传感器领域来说尤其是个问题，这些设备和传感器通常用于评价人类健康和监测环境条件，以及用于其他新的应用。虽然在功能和便利性方面令人印象深刻，但在这些应用中使用传统电子元件会造成巨大的浪费并导致更高的成本。这个项目的主要目标是开发一个全基于纸张的系统，在这里被称为集成纸电子，它可以环保，经济有效，自我可持续发展。所有的电子元件都将是纸质的，并集成在纸质印刷电路板（pcb）上，创新地为绿色和可再生的电子平台提供现实和实用的解决方案。合成油墨和纸张的流体吸液特性的创新组合将使电子元件的发展及其与纸张的集成成为可能。纸张的粗糙和多孔性使其难以打印有效成分，这将有利于我们提出的合成油墨纸张功能化技术。纸张非凡的折叠和堆叠特性将使多层PCB在小面积内集成许多元件。通过成熟的制造工艺，如蜡印、喷墨和丝网印刷，集成的纸电子系统可以很容易地批量制造。从这个项目中获得的知识将有利于科学教育。研究结果将首先通过当地和国际会议和期刊出版物在学科内传播；然后，它们将通过教育场所分发，最大限度地扩大项目的覆盖范围和影响。本NSF项目旨在通过将纸质电子元件系统集成到纸质PCB中，开发一个完全基于纸质的系统，从而创建一个一次性的绿色设备平台。我们设想，提出的创新将提供一种新的策略，彻底改变下一代一次性设备的制造和应用。拟议的工作本质上是多学科的，通过创新研究将纸基技术与合成材料科学联系起来，预计将产生大量具有重大变革潜力的新科学和技术成果。首先，将在纸上开发具有高密度、高导电性金属线的PCB，用于高性能集成电路（目标1）。然后，我们将创建完全基于纸张的电子元件，可以很容易地集成到纸张系统中（目标2）。最后，我们将开发一个完全自我维持的全纸质系统，以展示其在实际一次性物联网应用中的实际功效（目标3）。拟议研究的直接潜在好处是：(i)该项目将首次开发下一代绿色电子产品的电子平台，并将为一次性物联网（IoT）开辟新的前景；（ii）该工作将为纸张创造新的制造范式，提供灵活和一次性的特性，同时实现组件和pcb的低成本制造。（iii）随着实际批量制造技术的发展，它将导致集成纸基电子技术的跨越障碍的进步。该项目的成果将解决对美国安全和竞争力至关重要的传感、电子、材料和电力部门的重大挑战。通过提供一种工具，该工具将改进许多易于使用和简单的医疗保健和环境监测设备，从而使纸电子技术能够增强人类的能力和福祉。此外，这项工作将为减少急剧增加的电子废物提供一种极好的方法。因此，拟议的研究对健康和环境监测、人机界面、医学治疗和疾病诊断具有潜在的深远的社会和经济影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.