This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: While electronic devices have become an integral part of everyday life, the consumption of critical raw materials and energy demand associated with their production continue to rise. According to the European Commission's European Green Deal, Europe aims to become climate-neutral while maintaining a competitive economy by 2050, which calls for new approaches that consider sustainability not only at the end of a product's life cycle but also during the development phase.
This is precisely where the large-scale SUSTRONICS project comes in. The consortium, comprising partners from 11 European countries, is developing new technologies and methods to make electronics more sustainable throughout their entire life cycle. The focus is on resource-efficient materials, printed electronics, energy-efficient manufacturing processes, and concepts for reuse, repair and recycling.
The scientists are testing technologies provided by manufacturers in 10 demonstrators from various application areas, including medical diagnostic systems such as EEG devices, smart wound dressings and wearable sensors. A central role in the project is played by reliability testing and life cycle assessments (LCA), which the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM carries out, particularly for demonstrators in the medical and diagnostic technology field. Using scientifically grounded environmental assessments, researchers led by Fraunhofer IZM scientist David Sánchez analyze the entire life cycle of the developed products—from raw material extraction through manufacturing to use and end-of-life.
This allows them to identify hotspots: specific processes within the product life cycle that have particularly high environmental impacts and can be targeted for optimization. Through various LCAs examining global warming potential, critical material use and toxicity in detail, they found that electrodes were almost single-handedly driving the impacts for glucose monitoring patches. As the scientists feed these findings directly back to their development partners, enabling them to replace materials, adapt manufacturing processes or optimize product design before the products move into the next development phase, project partner Onalabs could implement an optical sensor in such a patch, thereby reducing its overall carbon footprint by around 65%.
The choice of materials, not just the technologies used, also plays an important role, as the team demonstrated for smart wound dressings: "Simply by using different substrates and conductive inks, such as Thinstar and carbon as a replacement for silver, as well as the use of recycled materials, the environmental impact of the flexible electronic modules in the product can be reduced by up to 95%, compared with the standard material combination of PET and silver," Sánchez of Fraunhofer IZM's Environmental Department said. SUSTRONICS aims to establish sustainability as a fixed component of European electronics development. The methods and results developed within the project are intended to be applied beyond the demonstrators, providing an important foundation for companies seeking to systematically incorporate environmental considerations throughout their development process.
Sánchez sums it up: "By providing meaningful data for environmental assessment, Fraunhofer IZM makes an important contribution to the environmentally friendly design of electronic products, starting as early as the R&D phase. SUSTRONICS offers a holistic approach and can serve as a flagship project for a sustainable circular economy—for stakeholders from industry, research and policy alike." Provided by Fraunhofer-Institut für Zuverlässigkeit und Mikrointegration IZM MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news.
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