From Forrest to Electronic and Biomedical Applications

According to the United Nations University’s Global e-waste monitor, a record of 62 Mt of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2022, which represents a record in human history, up 21% in only five years. The report also predicts that global e-waste will reach 82 Mt by 2030. This makes e-waste the world’s fastest-growing domestic waste stream, powered mainly by higher consumption rates of electric and electronic equipment, short lifecycles, and few options for repair. Sometimes it is mentioned that “e-waste is a toxic waste stream where valuable finite resources are lost”.<br/>The global consumption of electronics is forecast to double by 2050. In this context, printed electronics and 3D printing are an interesting alternative to conventional manufacturing methods and materials, reducing the weight of electronic components and offering more energy-efficient and sustainable solutions.<br/>Therefore, electronics, including flexible printed circuits are facing a critical challenge: How to balance, decreasing supplies with growing volumes of e-waste? In part: by using new sustainable approaches, either in terms of materials and technological processes!<br/>Here we propose the use of a new manufacturing technology supporting flexible and organic/inorganics electronics by exploring single laser processes for direct generation of conductive structures on biodegradable substrates. By means of different kind of laser sources, conductive carbon nanostructures can be generated on carbon-based precursor materials and substrates via a thermo-photo pyrolysis: the so-called Laser Induced Graphene (LIG). One of the main advantages of the LIG process is that the precursor materials and the substrates themselves can be bioderived and biodegradable, thus allowing new opportunities for sustainable electronics, avoiding the need to use scarce and difficult-to-recycle metal materials and be reused, in addition to costly and time-consuming processes.<br/>In this presentation we will demonstrate the use of the LIG process to a set of devices ranging from electronic to biomedical applications.