OPE Journal

16 OPV, SMART CITIES & SUSTAINABILITY No 37 | November 2021 | OPE journal rates of 2%. To manage this growing concern end-of-life management with efficient circular economy models, eco-design/circular design concepts, and methods for material and com- ponent disintegration tailored also for printed electronics, is required. Printed electronics is often said to enable ‘electronics everywhere’. This causes a chal- lenge to be able to collect and manage these devices from different waste streams, for example from package, textile and general waste, even as embedded functionalities. E-waste could be collected into an e-waste facility, or handled as part of existing waste management at different facilities. In either case holistic thinking for logistics, investments and capabilities is required. Electronic components attached to packages can influence the composition of solid and liquid residues in the paper recycling process, and thereby affect disposal costs [9] . Although it has been shown that small amounts of electronics components do not significantly increase the fibre rejects during paper recy - cling [10] , electronics among packaging waste is a growing concern. According to IDTechEx It is expected that almost 21 billion packages sold in 2030 will feature an electronic feature accounting for a huge amount of electronics that has to be disintegrated and separated from other packaging waste, preferably for recycle and reuse in order not to create a new source of harmful e-waste. Printing and bio-based materials can be used for integrating smart tags VTT and partners have integrated environ- mentally friendly solutions for intelligent packaging by utilising printing as an energy and material efficient manufacturing method, by using bio-based materials to replace non- renewable materials, and by benefiting from eco-design targets, such as minimising the use of materials. Anti-counterfeit labels (Figure 1) are consisting of electrochromic display (ECD) elements, NFC (Near Field Communication) tags and circuitry, and are all fully roll-to-roll (R2R) printed and assembled on plastic-free paper substrates, thus leading to a sustainable and recyclable device [11] . The setup used harvested energy from an HF field of a smartphone or reader, to switch an electrochromic display after rectification to prove authenticity of a prod - uct. This smart tag was ITO-free, plastic-free, fully-printed up to roll-to-roll (R2R) pilot scale, and had a good stability over 50 cycles with reversible colour change from light to dark blue. The smart label for monitoring food quality is a temperature logging label on a bio-polymer substrate based on a printed energy module, temperature monitoring NFC and printed circuits. All materials and processes have been selected based on a minimised environmental footprint evaluated for required electrical performance. The energy module consists of energy storage (supercapacitor) and energy harvesting (organic photovoltaics) capabilities making it ideal for energy autonomous moni- toring solutions. This demonstrator is part of the nationally funded ecosystem project ECOtronics [13] . Image source: Stella Lahti References [1] Mohammad Naji Nassajfar et al. ”Alter- native materials for printed circuit board production: an environmental perspective”, Proceedings of the 12 th International Con- ference on Environmental Engineering and Applications (ICEEA 2021), 2021 [2] J. Liu et al. “Future paper based printed circuit boards for green electronics: fabri- cation and life cycle assessment.” Energy & Environmental Science, 7(11), 2014, pp. 3674-3682 [3] N. Espinosa et al. “Life cycle assessment of ITO-free flexible polymer solar cells pre - pared by roll-to-roll coating and printing”. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 97, 2012, pp. 3-13. [4] European Union reflection paper. “Towards a Sustainable Europe by 2030”. January 2019. [5] euchems.eu [6] Forti, V. et al (2020), “The Global E-waste Monitor 2020”. [7] Circularity Gap Report 2020 https://www.circularity-gap.world/2020 [8] Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “Circular consumer electronics: an initial exploration”. 2017. [9] Furuta, T. et al ”Research on Recycling Cardboard with RF Tags/Labels.” RENGO CO., LTD. Tokyo, JAPAN: The Eighth International Conference on EcoBalance, 2018. [10] Aliaga, C. et al. “Recyclability assess- ment of printed electronics on paper sub- strate: a case study for smart envelopes in courier and postal services”. Waste Manag. 2015 Apr;38:41-8. [11] Hakola, L. et al ”Sustainable roll‐to‐roll manufactured multi‐layer smart label”, The International Journal of Advanced Manufac- turing Technology, 2021 [12] https://supersmart-project.eu/ [13] www.ecotronics.fi Fig. 1: Fully printed anti-counterfeit label implemented as part of the Supersmart project [12]. The project demonstrators were awarded the ‘Best Publicly Funded Project Demonstrator’ at the OE-A Competition 2021.