Organic flexible electronics with closed-loop recycling for sustainable wearable technology

Abstract

Flexible organic electronics can be used to create wearable devices but the synthesis of organic electronic materials typically involves hazardous solvents, creates toxic by-products and has various other environmental and economic costs. Being able to recycle organic electronic materials and devices in an eco-friendly and economical manner is thus key for their application in sustainable wearable electronics. Here we report organic flexible electronic devices with closed-loop recycling of each component. We develop approaches to recapture and reuse organic conductors, semiconductors and gate dielectrics, and evaluate the reliability of the recycled materials. Our fabrication and recycling processes also use only eco-friendly solvents (water, anisole and acetone). We illustrate the capabilities of the approach with various recyclable organic flexible electronic devices, including electrophysiological sensing electrodes, keypads, heaters/temperature sensors, electrochemical transistors and inverters. We also develop a sustainable device cycle by reconstructing various organic flexible electronics, which are fabricated using recycled materials from different functional devices without further replenishment.