Improving the Sustainability of Printed Circuit Boards Through Additive Printing

Grant, K., Zhang, S. and Kettle, J. (2023) Improving the Sustainability of Printed Circuit Boards Through Additive Printing. In: 10th IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability (SusTech 2023), Portland, OR, USA, 19-22 April 2023, ISBN 9798350345483 (doi: 10.1109/sustech57309.2023.10129587)

Abstract

A life-cycle assessment (LCA) was performed on Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) made using the traditional manufacturing approach with FR-4 substrates. LCA is vital as it allows for comparison of products in order to design it so that it has the lowest impact on the environment. The scope was cradle to grave, including embodied impacts, transportation, energy used during manufacturing, waste material generated and disposal. The impact of different processing steps were considered, all scored using the ReCiPe Endpoint. Results show that consideration should be given to PCB design, including number of layers used in multilayer boards. Furthermore, the study investigated the impact of changing the manufacturing methodology by considering an additive printed circuit board. A significant reduction in environmental impact is seen by moving to either polymeric or paper based substrates.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: We would like to acknowledge the support of the EPSRC grant ‘GEOPIC’ (EP/W019248/1)
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Kettle, Professor Jeff
• Authors: Grant, K., Zhang, S., and Kettle, J.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: 2023 IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability (SusTech)
• Publisher: IEEE
• ISBN: 9798350345483
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 IEEE
• First Published: First published in Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability (SusTech)
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced with the permission of the publisher

Related URLs

• Organisation

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
314917		Green Energy-Optimised Printed ICs	Ravinder Dahiya	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/W019248/1	ENG - Electronics & Nanoscale Engineering