DissolvPCB: Fully Recyclable 3D-Printed Electronics with Liquid Metal Conductors and PVA Substrates
E-waste is a global crisis. But for many engineers and designers, it can feel out of reach. We create electronics every day, yet the end-of-life impact often goes unaddressed.
We introduce DissolvPCB, an electronic prototyping technique for fabricating fully recyclable printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) using affordable FDM 3D printing. DissolvPCB uses polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a water-soluble substrate and eutectic gallium-indium (EGaIn) as the conductive material. When obsolete, the DissolvPCB PCBA can be easily recycled by immersing it in water: the PVA dissolves, the EGaIn re-forms into a liquid metal bead, and the electronic components are recovered. These materials can then be reused to fabricate a new PCBA.
We present the DissolvPCB workflow, characterize its design parameters, evaluate the performance of circuits produced with it, and quantify its environmental impact through a lifecycle assessment (LCA) comparing it to conventional CNC-milled FR-4 boards. We further develop an open-sourced software plugin that automatically converts PCB design files into 3D-printable circuit substrate models. To demonstrate the capabilities of DissolvPCB, we fabricate and recycle three functional prototypes: a Bluetooth speaker featuring a double-sided PCB, a finger fidget toy with a 3D circuit topology, and a shape-changing gripper enabled by Joule-heat-driven 4D printing. The paper concludes with a discussion of current technical limitations and opportunities for future directions.
Created by:
Zeyu Yan, SuHwan Hong, Josiah Hester, Tingyu Cheng, and Huaishu Peng
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