Argonne-led Research Working Toward Reducing Electronic Waste With Biodegradable Luminescent Polymers
2024年7月25日 - 4:35AM
ビジネスワイヤ(英語)
From your car’s navigation display to the screen you are reading
this on, luminescent polymers — a class of flexible materials that
contain light-emitting molecules — are used in a variety of today’s
electronics. Luminescent polymers stand out for their
light-emitting capability, coupled with their remarkable
flexibility and stretchability, showcasing vast potential across
diverse fields of application.
However, once these electronics reach their end use, they are
discarded, piling up in landfills or buried underground. Recycling
this electronic waste is complex, requiring expensive and
energy-inefficient processes. Although there is an economic
incentive to recycle the key semiconducting materials — in this
case, luminescent polymers — there has been no method to achieve
this due to the challenge of designing those materials at the
molecular level.
Overcoming this challenge was the motivation behind the newest
Nature Sustainability publication led by researchers at the U.S.
Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, along
with collaborators at the University of Chicago, Purdue University
and Yale University. The team developed a strategy to design
luminescent polymers with high light-emitting efficiencies from the
start that are both biodegradable and recyclable. They do so by
incorporating a chemical called tert-butyl ester into the
luminescent polymers, which can break down when exposed to heat or
mild acid.
In short, this chemical enables the recycling of the material
while maintaining high light-emitting functions.
The team then used a device to test the material’s external
quantum efficiency, an indicator of light source performance. It
scored an impressive 15.1% in electroluminescence, a tenfold
increase from the existing degradable luminescent polymers.
At the end of life, this new polymer can be degraded under
either mild acidic conditions (near the pH of stomach acid) or
relatively low heat treatment (> 410 F). The resulting materials
can be isolated and remade into new materials for future
applications.
The team aims to make future electronics more sustainable
(easier to degrade or recycle) and not just design for current
function. They also want to expand the usability of these products
into other fields.
Next steps for scaling the technology include moving it from the
lab to electronics such as cell phones and computer screens with
continued testing.
The team noted this is only a first step in the process, but
with electronic waste, every step counts. They hope that more
attention will be paid to designing electronics with sustainability
in mind, especially since this depolymerization proof of concept
was so successful.
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Christopher J. Kramer Head of Media Relations Argonne National
Laboratory Office: 630.252.5580 Email: media@anl.gov