Beatrice: HTW Dresden

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Faculty of Agriculture/Environment/Chemistry

Biobased Degradable Flame Retardant Printed Eco-Electronics (Beatrice)

[Translate to English:] Übersicht Beatrice

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 958174 and is supported by SMWK (Germany), NKFIH (Hungary) and UEFISCDI (Romania).

Background and Project Goals

Rapidly increasing volumes of short-lived commercial electronic products are generating ever-increasing amounts of electronic waste. One of the main problems is the decomposition of electronic circuit boards after the use phase. The substrate materials are mostly made of petroleum-based thermosets, some of which contain ecologically harmful brominated flame- retardants. Since a large part of PCB (printed circuit boards) production takes place in Asia, the
EU has no influence on the composition and environmental compatibility of this base material for electrical engineering and electronic components. Due to the non-recyclable thermoset material used to date, the separation of metals and organic components is still a challenge to solve in terms of carbon footprint and cost. Global sustainability requires a comprehensive approach that includes innovative manufacturing processes for composites and electronics as well as environmentally friendly disposal and recycling strategies such as design for recycling. Strategic technology metal (such as copper, silver and gold), as well as key raw material recycling is also an important issue.

Biodegradable plastics, whose basic suitability for the production of PCBs at laboratory and demonstration scale (TRL2-3) we have already demonstrated, can be a key to solving the recycling problem mentioned above by enabling a recycling-friendly PCB design. The goal of the project is to develop demonstrators of electronic assemblies to be manufactured from sustainable and environmentally friendly raw materials as carrier substrates at technical scale using industry-standard machinery. Also to enable recycling through a biodegradation process of the composite material as a potential key to cost-efficient and environmentally friendly strategic technology metalrecycling.

BEATRICE aims to produce environmentally friendly electronic substrates for rigid and flexible materials and devices from high-performance composites with tailored thermal, electrical and mechanical properties for use in electronics, which is part of the global trend towards heterogeneous integration. The overall goal of BEATRICE is to initiate the production of sustainable printed circuit boards for electronic assemblies to replace the usual standard material (such as FR4), and to enable a new design principle for recycling, in the meanwhile being completely producible and manufacturable in Europe. The double benefit would lessen the environmental impact of involved plastics and improve the recirculation of strategic metals, lowering the dependence of Europe on external
sources and factors.

Project Partners

The BEATRICE project combines the scientific excellence of Germany, Hungary and Romania in the production of novel, bio-based, degradable, flame-retardant printed electronics for mass production of electronics and their degradation properties:

HTWD University of Applied Sciences (HTWD)
Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME)
National Research and Development Institute for Textiles and Leather (INCDTP/ICPI)
S.C. Monofil S.R.L.