Call for Papers

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

The degradation of devices is increasingly becoming a critical consideration for the sustainability of devices used outside the body and the functionality of medical devices used inside the body. Degradable medical devices that can be implanted or injected enable new treatment approaches and monitoring concepts without the need for surgery to remove the devices. For devices used outside the body, degradable materials are sought to reduce the accumulation of waste, which is particularly important for waste streams that produce toxic degradation products, exemplified by electronic devices.

This symposium brings together expertise in all areas of degradable materials and devices, including materials discovery, device engineering, and the impact of degradation products in the body or the environment. Devices should have stable functional properties until their function is complete, which can range from days for implantable devices to several years for IoT devices. This has motivated the development of materials that degrade on demand or in specific conditions, such as self-immolative polymers and pH-dependent degradation of nanomaterials. A key question the community is seeking to address is how to achieve performance comparable to traditional devices using degradable materials. Solutions include device optimization and improved understanding of the effect of manufacturing on composites and multilayered materials. As emphasized by increasing awareness of microplastics, understanding the effect of the degradation products will be a critical future challenge. The development of degradable devices will ultimately enable unprecedented capabilities in medical diagnostics and treatments while providing a route towards cost effective and sustainable consumer devices.

Topics will include:

• Chemistry of degradable polymers
• Materials processing to tune degradation
• Performance of degradable composites
• Performance of electronic devices made of degradable materials
• Sensors and actuators made of degradable materials
• Degradable batteries and power sources
• Degradable optical devices
• Degradable environmental sensors
• Degradable devices for medical applications
• Food monitoring degradable packaging
• Degradable wireless antennas and IoT applications
• Impact of degradation products on environmental and biological systems

Invited Speakers (tentative):

• Matt Becker (Duke University, USA)
• Michael Dickey (North Carolina State University, USA)
• Thierry Djenizian (Ecole Des Mines, France)
• Elizabeth Gillies (University of Western Ontario, Canada)
• Suk-Won Hwang (Korea University, Republic of Korea)
• Mihai Irimia-Vladu (Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Austria)
• Martin Kaltenbrunner (Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Austria)
• Seung-Kyun Kang (Seoul National University, Republic of Korea)
• Gurvinder Singh Khinda (General Electric Company, USA)
• Thanh Duc Nguyen (University of Connecticut, USA)
• Ji-Ho Park (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea)
• Rahim Rahimi (Purdue University, USA)
• Ritu Raman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• John Rogers (Northwestern University, USA)
• Simon Rondeau Gagne (Windsor University, Canada)
• Michael Sailor (University of California, San Diego, USA)
• Gregory Whiting (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)
• Lan Yin (Tsinghua University, China)

Symposium Organizers