Reliability Assessment of Additively Printed Electronics With Biodegradable Substrate

Abstract Non-biodegradable printing substrates include polycarbonate, polyamide, high-impact polystyrene, and polyethylene glycol terephthalate. These carbon-based polymeric substrates contribute to environmental pollution. Another negative side of these printed electronics is the ink used to fabricate the circuits. Most of the inks contain volatile organic compound (VoC) based solvents, which allow for the ample release of high-impact electronics waste. The presented work focuses on the development of additively manufactured electronics for fabrication on paper substrates. Specifically, seed-paper which can be disposed of at the end of life, resulting in the growth of green plants at the end of life from the live seeds in the paper substrate. The use of seed paper-based electronics is well suited for use-and-forget applications with a limited use life in which the part may be disposed of after a single use, as is the case in a few low-cost sensing applications. Again, the use of water-based sustainable ink reduces the release of VoC in the environment resulting in a decrease in environmental pollution. So, water-based sustainable ink has been used for printing. Direct write 3D printing technique has been applied on the nScrypt platform. The reliability of the printed traces and SMDs have been analyzed as well as functional circuit has been developed.