📋 Tender Overview
Researchers from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology Empa have found an environmentally friendly solution to the rapidly increasing number of 3D-printed electrical circuits. Their ink made from graphite and shellac is metal-free non-toxic and biodegradable.A research team from the Cellulose Wood Materials lab at Empa has developed a method to make disposable sensors more sustainable. As Empa writes in a press release the researchers have succeeded in their efforts to develop a functional material that does not contain metal. Moreover it is also non-toxic and biodegradable.These sensors are increasingly being manufactured by way of 3D printing processes. Up to now the inks used contain metal particles that make them conductive. This is used for example in smart packaging solutions to monitor fresh produce such as vegetables on long transport routes. However these metals also exacerbate the problem of electronic waste.The new solution developed by the researchers uses elongated graphite platelets as a conductive material which are mixed with tiny soot particles all in a matrix made of the well-known biomaterial shellac. The biggest challenge was to achieve high electrical conductivity and at the same time form a gel-like network of carbon graphite and shellac explains Xavier Aeby one of the researchers involved in the project.We hope that this ink system can be used for applications in sustainable printed electronics comments Gustav Nystrm head of the Cellulose Wood Materials lab at Empa in the press release for example for conductive tracks and sensor elements in smart packaging and biomedical devices or in the field of food and environmental sensing he adds.
