PubMed ID: 26006731
Author(s): Jung YH, Chang TH, Zhang H, Yao C, Zheng Q, Yang VW, Mi H, Kim M, Cho SJ, Park DW, Jiang H, Lee J, Qiu Y, Zhou W, Cai Z, Gong S, Ma Z. High-performance green flexible electronics based on biodegradable cellulose nanofibril paper. Nat Commun. 2015 May 26;6:7170. doi: 10.1038/ncomms8170. PMID 26006731
Journal: Nature Communications, Volume 6, May 2015
Today’s consumer electronics, such as cell phones, tablets and other portable electronic devices, are typically made of non-renewable, non-biodegradable, and sometimes potentially toxic (for example, gallium arsenide) materials. These consumer electronics are frequently upgraded or discarded, leading to serious environmental contamination. Thus, electronic systems consisting of renewable and biodegradable materials and minimal amount of potentially toxic materials are desirable. Here we report high-performance flexible microwave and digital electronics that consume the smallest amount of potentially toxic materials on biobased, biodegradable and flexible cellulose nanofibril papers. Furthermore, we demonstrate gallium arsenide microwave devices, the consumer wireless workhorse, in a transferrable thin-film form. Successful fabrication of key electrical components on the flexible cellulose nanofibril paper with comparable performance to their rigid counterparts and clear demonstration of fungal biodegradation of the cellulose-nanofibril-based electronics suggest that it is feasible to fabricate high-performance flexible electronics using ecofriendly materials.