Fully printed, all-carbon, recyclable electronics

TL;DR

This paper presents a fully recyclable, all-carbon electronic device fabricated on paper substrates, demonstrating complete material recovery and reusability, thus offering a sustainable solution to electronic waste.

Contribution

It introduces a novel all-carbon, printed electronic system with complete recyclability, including a process for controlled decomposition and reuse of materials.

Findings

Devices show high stability over 6 months.

Recycling process allows complete material recovery.

Performance of reprinted devices is comparable to original.

Abstract

The rapid growth of electronic waste must be curtailed to prevent accumulation of environmentally and biologically toxic materials, which are essential to traditional electronics. The recent proliferation of transient electronics has focused predominantly on biocompatibility, and studies reporting material recapture have only demonstrated reuse of conducting materials. Meanwhile, the ideal solution to the electronic waste epidemic-recapture and reuse of all materials-has been largely neglected. Here we show complete recyclability of all materials in printed, all-carbon electronics using paper substrates, semiconducting carbon nanotubes, conducting graphene, and insulating crystalline nanocellulose. The addition of mobile ions to the dielectric produced significant improvements in switching speed, subthreshold swing, and among the highest on-current for printed transistors. These devices evinced superlative stability over 6 months, after which they are shown to be controllably decomposed for complete recycling of materials and re-printing of devices with similar performance to baseline devices. The printing of all-carbon, recyclable electronics presents a new path toward green electronics with potential to mitigate the environmental impact of electronic waste. We anticipate all-carbon, recyclable electronics to be a watershed, facilitating internet-of-everything applications, such as ubiquitous sensors for continuous monitoring of diseases or environmental conditions, while preserving carbon neutrality in the device lifecycle.