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Energy & Environmental Science Accepted Manuscript

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Future Paper based Printed Circuit Boards for

Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/x0xx00000x
Green Electronics: Fabrication and Life Cycle
Assessment
Jingping Liu,a Cheng Yang,*a Haoyi Wu,a Ziyin Lin,b Zhexu Zhang,a Ronghe
Received 00th January 2014,
Accepted 00th January 2014
Wang,a Baohua Li,a Feiyu Kang,a,d Lei Shi,*c Ching Ping Wongb
DOI: 10.1039/x0xx00000x Paper-based electronics have been considered as one of the most exciting technologies in the
near future due to sustainability, low cost and mechanical flexibility etc. Even though there
www.rsc.org/
have been numerous studies regarding this technology, there isn’t any available quantitative
study on how paper electronics would minimize the impact to the environment. This work aims
to give the first detailed analysis regarding this important question. To this end, we for the first
time designed and prototyped the paper-based multilayer printed circuit boards (P-PCB), which
show comparable functions to the currently available organic printed circuit boards (O-PCB);
yet the P-PCB adopt a “green” preparation process. A life cycle assessment study was
performed to quantify the P-PCB’s environmental impacts, e.g. Acidification Potential Global
Warming Potential, Human Toxic Potential, and Ozone Layer Depletion Potential etc. Our
current research reveals that the P-PCB have about two magnitude lower impact to the
environment than O-PCB based on the results of the life cycle assessment, which suggests that
the P-PCB technique is beneficial for the environment at the regional or global production
level. The current study gives useful information and sheds light on the future technological
directions for the various paper based electronics studies.

Introduction
Paper-based electronics have attracted considerable interest because counterparts. Therefore it’s of considerable interest to carry out a
of their unique characteristics including flexibility, foldability, systematic survey of paper-based electronics, i.e. paper-based
lightweight, degradability and low cost. A wide range of devices printed circuit board (P-PCB) technology in this report.
have been investigated in a paper-based scenario,1 including
transistors,2, 3 solar cells,4, 5 supercapacitors,6, 7 batteries,8-11 radio Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are an indispensable part in the
frequency identification (RFID) tags,12-14 antennas,15, 16 micro-fluidic electronic industry, which provide support for the integrated circuits
paper-based analytical devices (µPAD),17 micro electro-mechanical and electrical connections for the electronic components. The global
systems (MEMS),18, 19 touch pads,20, 21 flexible displays,22 OLEDs23 PCB market was about 54 billion in 2012, of which China market
and microfluidic analytical devices etc.24 Although these new types accounted for almost 40% and is predicted to continously increase in
of products are considered to be advantageous over the conventional the next five years.25 However, the conventional PCB is an
ones in terms of both economic and environmental concerns, there environmentally harzadous product due to the significantly negative
still lacks a systematic evaluation about how and how much the impact along its life cycle. For example, the PCB manufacturing is
paper-based electronic products could be better than the current
Broader Context

The concept of paper based electronics has been brought out for decades and there are many developments about the materials, techniques
and applications in recent years. Many reports present the excellent properties of paper based electronics in various applications and discuss
the possibilities towards large scale manufacturing, commercialization and product integration. As such, a comprehensive assessment of the
paper based electronics is necessary, such as the cost, environmental impact and market size etc. Among them, the environmental impact is
one of the most concerned issues, yet there is few research on it and no report available on how much environmental burdens paper
electronics have. In this work we developed a multilayer paper based printed circuit board (P-PCB) technque which provides adequate
functionalities for common uses; we further conducted the life cycle assessment (LCA) to analysize the environmental impacts of the
prototypes based on this technique. With the comparison of the quantitative life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results of P-PCB and the
ordinary organic printed circuits board (O-PCB), we show the great advantages of P-PCB in green electronics, which will cater to the trend
of eco-products and sustainability of future electronics.

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well known as an energy-intensive and chemical-intensive industry, issues for P-PCB, which requires excellent electrical property,
which involves many chemical processes and materials that are reliability and processability etc.
potentially harmful to the environment.26, 27 It’s once reported that
the electronic industry caused severe pollution of some rivers around To all these ends, we for the first time established a processing
the pearl river delta that contain excessive levels of heavy metals technique for the preparation of the P-PCB and systematically
such as copper and lead.28 What is more, the PCB industry brings evaluated the environmental impacts. Even though there have been
about potential environmental issues in the waste disposal and significant advances in the paper based printed conductive circuit
recycling stages. It is estimated that globally, 20-50 million tons of technology,12, 15, 16, 41-45 we selected electrically conductive adhesives
waste electrical and electronic equipments (WEEE) are discarded (ECAs) as the conductive material for P-PCB in this study; this is
annually, and a large sum of them are informally collected and mainly because ECAs have been well applied in electronic
recycled especially in those developing countries in Africa and packaging industry for decades and the recent technical advances of
Asia.29, 30 This problem is more servere in the case of mid-range and ECAs guarantee the necessary functionalities even when it is printed
low-end electrical devices such as domestic appliances. It is on paper, such as excellent conductivity, mechanical robustness,
forecasted that the amount of domestic e-waste in China will rise to outstanding reliability as compared to the conductive inks, and there
5.4 million tons in 2015.31 The waste PCBs are from all kinds of are a broad spectrum of choices of the high performance polymer
WEEE, which contain a large amount of toxic substances, such as resin binder to meet various application scenarios.46-53 The present
organic compounds, heavy metals and brominated flame retardants work adopts the thermoset polyurethane (PU)-based ECA with micro
(BFR); these substances can cause serious environmental and health silver flakes as conductive fillers, which exhibits excellent electrical
problems if improperly disposed. For instance, Guiyu in Guangdong conductivity and many other superior performance characteristics.43,
53, 54
province, China (Figure S11) may be the largest electronic waste (e- Correspondingly, we adopt the screen printing method in this
waste) site on the earth.32, 33 Due to the many primitive recycling work which is widely used in the printed circuit industry.
operations, 80% of the children in Guiyu were suffering from lead
poisoning and the soil there had been found to be so saturated with Based on our current technique, a series of prototypes of P-PCB
heavy metals such as lead, chromium and tin that the groundwater with the necessary functionalities were prepared. In order to evalute
becomes undrinkable.34 the environmental costs of P-PCB scientifically, we adopted the life
cycle assessment (LCA) method. The LCA is an effective approach
In order to solve these problems, besides imposing more strict to analyze both the energy consumption and environmental impacts
regulations by the governments, techncial advances such as associated with a product over its full life cycle all through the raw
replacing the current hazardous materials with more materials acquisition, production phase, use phase and waste
environmentally-benign ones can be a very effective manner. As management;55, 56 and it has been widely applied in the development
such, paper-based PCB (P-PCB) technique has been regarded as one stage of a new product or technology. The LCA results can provide
of the most promising alternatives to the current organic PCB (O- us a guidance of materials selection, product design, recovery mode
PCB) technique in near future for green electronics and sustainable and even policy making so that we can focus research efforts on
development due to the features of sustainability, flexibility, minimizing the burdens of a product while maximizing its benefits.
degradability and low cost. A life cycle thinking is helpful for the eco-design or sustainable
design of a new product or technology. So we conducted the LCA
In order to enable a new integration scheme of P-PCB into the method to quantify the environmental impacts and indentify the key
current electronic packaging technology so as to achieve the drivers of the environmental impacts in the whole life cycle of the P-
necessary working functions for the future green electronics, a novel PCB prototypes.
prototype of P-PCB needs to be established. The design of this
prototype shall follow some basic principles so that the future P- Methodology
PCB can possess the general functions much resembling to the
available common O-PCB. For example, 1) a P-PCB shall possess
Fabrication and characterizations of the P-PCB prototypes
excellent electrical conductivity in the printed circuit areas to avoid
severe resistance loss; 2) the resolution of lines and pitches shall
We designed a pure additive process for fabricating a multilayer P-
meet the basic requirements for modern electronic packages; 3) it PCB, which mainly utilizes the techniques of screen printing,
could have a multilayer structure with functional vias; and 4) it shall drilling and filling. In a typical process, we firstly screen print the
have adequate reliability which ensures the general applications.
polyurethane (PU)-based ECA with the designed patterns on each
Moreover, considering the intrinsic characteristics of paper, a pure
layer of paper substrate and cure them at 150 oC, and then adhere
additive process seems to be the best choice for the fabrication of P- them layer by layer using the pressure sensitive adhesive with a
PCB, such as 3-D printing,35 inkjet printing12, 36-38 and screen position-alignment setup, so that the circuits on different layers are
printing,39, 40 instead of the current subtractive or a hybrid one which
aligned with each other. After that, we connect each layer by
involves with the wet process for both the rigid PCB and flexible
punching vertical interconnect access (via) and filling the ECA;
PCB. Besides, the wiring material is one of the most important

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Figure 1. a) A brief flow chart of the pure additive fabrication process of a three-layered P-PCB. b) A schematic diagram of the through-via and blind-via
connecting the circuits on different layers of a three-layered P-PCB: the first layer and second layer are connected by two blind-vias, and the first layer and the
third layer are connected by two through-vias. c) A prototype of a twinkling LED array showing the letters “THU”.(The scale bar is 10 mm) d) Optical
microscopic cross-sectional images of a through-via (left) and a blind-via, the ECA filled in the via connected well with each layer. (The scale bar is 0.5 mm)

finally the surface mount devices (SMDs) are mounted onto the the back (Avery Dennison Co. America, FASSON series, AW5416),
surface of the P-PCB with polyacrylate based ECA which can be PU resin (Bayer material science AG, Germany, DESMOPHEN
cured at room temperature. Some times, we need blind vias or 1150 and BL 3175 SN), polyacrylate resin (Koninklijke DSM N.V.,
burried vias and thus we may adjust the sequence of the adhering Holland, NeoCryl B-725), micro-silver powders (Sichuang Banknote
and punching steps and the electrical connection would be assured. Co., China, Product No. SF01A) and scotch tape (3M). We tailored a
Using the above methods, the as-obtained P-PCB show analagous position-alignment setup to fabricate this three-layered P-PCB.
functions as compared with the conventional flexible or rigid O-PCB.
Figure 1a and b shows the flow chart and a scheme of a typical Life cycle assessment
process for a three-layered P-PCB.
The present LCA was conducted according to ISO 14040 guidelines
Usually, a two to four-layered circuit board can meet the general which included four steps: 1) goal and scope definition, 2) inventory
mid-range needs for PCB uses, thus we designed several three- analysis which quantifies the materials inputs, the energy inputs, and
layered circuit prototypes (twinkling LED array, doorbell) for P- the environmental discharges through the specified life cycle phases,
PCB and replaced the control panel of a tempeture controller with 3) impact assessment which accumulates flows into different impact
our P-PCB, which worked very well and showed adequate categories, 4) interpretation of the results.57
functionality characteristics comparable to O-PCBs (ESI for
In order to demonstrate the environmental advantage of the P-
details†). Here, epoxy based substrate (FR-4) is used for comparison.
PCB, we conducted a comparative LCA for both P-PCB and the
Then we compared a series of performance characteristics that were
epoxy based O-PCB in terms of materials and processes. As the
essential for PCB applications, including line spacing, moisture
four-layered epoxy based PCB is commonly used, we defined the
resistance, flame retardation, biodegradability, reliability, and
functional unit as “fabricating 10000 m2 of four-layered PCB with
dielectrical property of the substrate materials, etc. These tests were
paper/epoxy substrate”, and we consider the two kinds of PCB to
performed according to the standards prevalently used in the PCB
have similar functionalities (we consider them to have the same
industry, i.e. the ICP 6013 series.
circuit area, which is 20000 m2 in this study). The system boundaries
The materials that we chose were mainly commercial-available are shown in Figure 2. We took the raw materials acquisition,
printing paper with adhesive stiker (pressure sensitive adhesive) on fabrication of PCB and waste disposal into consideration, and
excluded the tranportation and use phase in the system boundaries.

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Figure 2 System boundaries of paper based multilayer PCB (left) and epoxy based multilayer PCB (right).

After defining the scope of the study, we established the material The comprehensive properties of the P-PCB
inventory by collecting data from local firms in Shenzhen City
(Shennan circuits Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Hangsheng Electronics
We have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of forming 3~10
Co., Ltd.) and the published literatures. Additionally, for P-PCB, we
layered P-PCBs with the procedure we proposed: Figure 1c is a
designed and carried out a procedure for multilayer P-PCB
prototype with three layers and Figure 1d shows the cross-section of
fabrications and developed the material inventory based on
a through-via and a blind-via of this prototype. The connections of
reasonable assumptions, experimental data and computer models.
five and ten layers of P-PCB are shown in Figure S3. We can see
The main materials inventory data and the collection methods are
that the filled ECA connects well with each layer of the printed ECA
presented in Table S1 and S3,† all the materials were tracked back to
pattern, and this may guarantee the electrical connection of each
the point of resource extraction, using cradle-to-gate data from the
layer, which is one of the most important issues of a multilayer P-
database (Ecoinvent).
PCB.
The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) was conducted with the
The comprehensive properties of P-PCB are shown in Table 1,
characterization model CML 2001-Apr. 2013 incorporated in GaBi
and are compared with those of the typical O-PCB. In addition to the
6.0. In this assessment we considered several most concerned
advantages of low cost and degradability, the P-PCBs also show
environmental impact catagories: Abiotic Depletion (ADP) (fossil),
excellent reliability performance characteristic during a temperature-
Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP),
humidity (85°C/85RH) aging test (Figure S6) and a thermal cycling
Freshwater Aquatic Ecotoxicity Potentail (FAETP), Global
(-40~125°C) test. To be specific, the bulk resistivity of the test
Warming Potential (GWP), Human Toxic Potential (HTP), Ozone
samples maintained at 1.6 × 10-5 Ω·cm after being aged at
Layer Depletion Potential (ODP), Photochem. Ozone Creation
85°C/85RH for 1500 hours, while it just increased to 5.9 x 10-5
Potential (POCP), and Terrestric Ecotoxicity Potential (TETP).
Ω·cm after 600 cycles of the thermal cycling test (-40°C~125oC, one
These categories can give full description of the environmental
cycle in 30 min). Althrough the line spacing, line width and
impacts of the P-PCB.
dielectrical property (dielectric loss) are inferior to that of O-PCB,
they are still sufficient to meet the requirements for many low
Results and discussions density and low-frequency PCB applications. As for the poor
performance of flame retardation, moisture resistance and

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Table 1 Comprehensive comparison of paper based PCB (P-PCB) and organic based PCB (O-PCB).
Paper based PCB Organic based PCB*
Substrate Commercially available paper Epoxy resin/glassfiber/inorganic fillers

Energy & Environmental Science Accepted Manuscript

Biodegradability Degradable Nondegradable
Flame retardation Poor to fair Good
Moisture resistance Poor to fair Good
Line spacing ~100 µm1 ~50 µm
Line width 50-100 µm for screen printing1 ~50 µm
Tensile strength ~6 MPa for printing paper** ---
Flexural strength --- > 400 MPa
Resistivity of conductive ~10-5 Ω·cm for 50% Ag loading of PU based
~2 x 10-6 Ω·cm for copper foil
materials ECA**
> 85°C/85RH 1500h** > 85°C/85RH 1500h
Reliability
> -40~125°C/500 cycles** > -40~125°C/ 500 cycles
SMT temperature Room temperature ~240 °C
Dielectric constant ~3 (1G Hz)*** ~4.5 (1G Hz)
Dielectric loss factor ~0.132 (1G Hz)*** ~0.023(1G Hz)
Cost**** 15~30 USD/m2 90~120 USD/m2
* We took the FR-4 based PCB for comparison, the performance characteristic parameters are from the product manual of Shennan circuits Co., Ltd.
** The parameters were obtained by experiments, the details can be found in the electronic supplementary informatoin.
*** Tested after drying at 80oC for 2h and conditioned in a closet with stable temperature and humidity (20oC, 60%RH).
**** Cost of the P-PCB is calculated based on the prototypes that we prepared (details are shown in Table S11) and the cost of the O-PCB (FR-4) is from
Shennan circuits Co., Ltd., both contain four layers.

mechanical strength, we can adopt paper-making technique to Environmental impact results of the P-PCB
improve them for future applications (such as adopting proper sizing
agent or controlling the surface chemistry58). On these grounds, the
Figure 4 shows the environmental profile of the P-PCB. The listed
P-PCB shows comparable functionalities with the conventional O-
are the main raw materials in the production of silver flakes and
PCB. To be noted, even though silver is much expensive than copper
fabrication of P-PCB. The scores of the environmental impact of
(about 80 times), it’s still quite economical since a pure additive
each material are normalized in terms of percentage, so that we can
process only involves limited amount of materials and processing
define which material is the most contributing factor in the life cycle.
steps (Table S2 and S4).
For example, the raw material of paper is the main contributor to
ADP (51.1%), AP (38.9%), EP (45.1%), FAETP (30.2%), GWP
Inventory results of the P-PCB
(47.9%), ODP (67.3%), HTP (11.7%), POCP (52.88%) and TETP
(40.68%). Because paper is the main component of the P-PCB (~88
The main components of the P-PCB are shown in Table 2, and the wt%), the pulp production and paper production processes are main
inventory data are mainly calculated from the model and the contributors to the environmental impacts. The Suspended
prototypes that we constructed before (ESI for details†). The energy Solid(SS),
consumed in the manufacturing process is estimated with the
parameters of the available equipments and the actual consumption Table 2 Material and energy inventory of P-PCB
in the experiments. From the preliminary assessment results, we may Component Material Weight content
find that although the conductive filler (silver flakes) only makes up
2.83wt% of the P-PCB, its environmental impacts account for a Substrate Paper 87.77%
considerable proportion of that of the whole P-PCB. For instance, Adhesive Methyl acrylate 6.58%
silver is responsible for more than 75% of the HTP. So we collected Conductive filler Silver flakes 2.83%
the inventory data of the production of silver flakes (Table 3) for a
more detailed LCA, and in this way we can focus more on the main ECA binder Polyurethane 2.83%
causes of the environmental impacts. The detailed inputs inventory is Energy consumption /m2 0.173kWh
shown in Table S2, which are tracked back to resource consumption.
Table 3 Material and energy inventory for silver flakes
Inventory comparisons
Ag flakes/1 kg

Figure 3 presents the life cycle inventory results on the mass of Raw materials Amount Unit
emissions for fabricating 10000 m2 P-PCB and O-PCB. The O-PCB AgNO3 1.573 kg
life cycle shows significantly greater emissions to both air and water, Ethanol 1 kg
which means that the life cycle of O-PCB is more environmentally
harmful: the more materials and resource consumptions contribute to Water 10 kg
more gaseous emisssions like CO2, SO2, NOx and CH4 etc., more NaOH 0.370 kg
chemical processes involved in the life cycle is responsible for more
Formaldehyde 0.139 kg
emissions of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biological Oxygen
Demand (BOD) and phosphate.

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Electricity 8 kWh TETP g DCB-Equiv. 6.49E+04 9.04E+06 139:1

1.0E+06

Energy & Environmental Science Accepted Manuscript

Emissions (kg/10000m2 PCB)

P-PCB
1.0E+05
O-PCB

1.0E+04

1.0E+03

1.0E+02

1.0E+01

1.0E+00

Figure 5 Comparison of the standardized LCIA results of P-PCB and epoxy

based PCB
Figure 3 Comparative LCI for P-PCB and O-PCB. PM2.5 refers to particle
matter≤2.5 μm; COD refers to Chemical Oxygen Demand; BOD refers to
Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Absorbable Organic Halide
Biological Oxygen Demand.
(AOX) in the pulp production contribute to the EP, FAETP, HTP
100% and TETP; while burdens on ADP are due to energy consumption
which is mostly based on fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the alkyl halide
emissioin is the primary cause of ODP and the emissions of SO2,
80% CO2, NOx in the pulp production and paper production are the main
contributors to AP, GWP, and POCP. 59
60% In addition to paper, silver is another significant contributor,
despite that it only accounts for less than 3 wt% of the P-PCB (Table
40% 2). This is because the production of silver is a high consumption
process: burdens on AP (18%) are due to SO2 emission from fossil
fuel combustion; burdens on EP (36.6%) originate from phosphide
20% and nitride emissions; and the cyanide, biphenyl, mercury, lead, tin
discharged in the refining process is responsible for 78.8% of HTP,
57.9% of FAETP and 41.3% of TETP.
0%
On the other hand, the polymer resins, which act as the binder
(polyester) and adhesive sticker (polyacrylate), also account for
Paper Water Electricity some aspects of air pollution, e.g. AP, GWP, POCP, and ODP
Ethanol,95% Methyl Acrylate Silver because of their potential to discharge SO2, CO2, NOx and
Formaldehyde Methyl Isocyanate halohydrocarbon in the production and disposal phases. Besides, the
HNO₃,50%
electricity used in the O-PCB fabrication contributes to ADP, AP,
Polyester NaOH,50% GWP, POCP for its consumption of fossil fuel and emissions of SO2,
CO2, CH4, NOx.
Figure 4 Environmental profile of P-PCB; the main raw materials and
consumptions in the manufacturing of P-PCB are listed.
Environmental impact comparisons
Table 4 LCIA for 10000m2 P-PCB and O-PCB.
Impact O-PCB Table 4 shows the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results of
Impact units P-PCB O-PCB
catagories :P-PCB both P-PCB and O-PCB. The flows in the life cycle of O-PCB are
ADP J 8.51E+10 5.50E+12 65:1 much more than those of P-PCB. For example, the emission
AP g SO2-Equiv. 3.63E+04 4.53E+06 125:1 equivalent weight of HTP, FAETP, EP, TETP and AP in the life
g Phosphate- cycle of O-PCB is more than one hundred times of that of the P-PCB.
EP 1.88E+04 2.95E+06 157:1 This is mainly due to the consumption of copper in the O-PCB
Equiv.
FAETP g DCB-Equiv. 3.11E+06 5.81E+08 187:1 production as the life cycle of copper contributes the most to AP
(45.15%), EP (63.56%), FAETP (89.52%), HTP (84.02%), TETP
GWP g CO2-Equiv. 5.55E+06 3.92E+08 71:1 (85.09%), POCP (38.06%) as a result of the energy consumption and
HTP g DCB-Equiv. 1.03E+07 2.31E+09 224:1 emissions (gas emissions such as CO2, SO2, NO2 and waste water
ODP g R11-Equiv. 3.56E-01 1.85E+01 52:1 emission) in the mining and refining processes of copper.60 In
g Ethene- addition, the emission equivalent weight of the other environmental
POCP 3.31E+03 3.29E+05 99:1
Equiv. impact catagories of O-PCB is also dozens of times of that of P-PCB.

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That is because of the electricity consumption mainly in the This work is financially supported by the Shenzhen Peacock Plan
electroplating process and the large sum of raw materials such as No.KQCX20120814155245647, Shenzhen Technical Project
epoxy substrate, glass fiber and Al2O3 etc., which put on much No.JCYJ20130402145002411, Guangdong Province Innovation

Energy & Environmental Science Accepted Manuscript

burden on the environment in their life cycle. The contributions of R&D Team Plan No.2009010025, and National Nature Science
each input of O-PCB to the environmental impacts are shown in Foundation of China No. 51202120 & 51232005.
Figure S10.
Notes and references
To sum up, the environmental burdens of P-PCB are about two a
Division of Energy and Environment, Graduate School at Shenzhen,
orders of magnitude less than O-PCB, as shown in Figure 5 and Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, P. R. China.
Table 4, which render an essential difference between P-PCB and O- E-mail: yang.cheng@sz.tsinghua.edu.cn
PCB and that could be explained by the followings. Firstly, the raw b
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of
materials of P-PCB are simple and environmental-friendly ones, of
Technology, 771 Ferst Dr. Atlanta, GA 30332, U.S.A.
which more than 80% is cellulose paper and the environmental c
School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
harmful materials only account for less than 5%. In contrast, the O-
PCB has more unfriendly raw materials, such as epoxy resin, E-mail: slone@tsinghua.edu.cn
d
glassfiber, fillers and copper foils. Secondly, the pure additive State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department
method adopted in the P-PCB manufacture is more economical and of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing
simpler than the conventional processes of O-PCB production, 100084, China.
which is energy consuming and sacrifices a large amount of copper.
Thirdly, the waste treatment of P-PCB is more environmentally- † Electronic Supplementary Information (ESI) is also included. See
friendly for its cellulose nature; whereas epoxy requires a high DOI: 10.1039/b000000x/
temperature of 800 oC to decompose, and toxic emissions such as 1. D. Tobjork and R. Osterbacka, Adv. Mater., 2011, 23, 1935-1961.
dioxin could be discharged,33 which is restricted by European Union 2. O. D. Jurchescu, M. Popinciuc, B. J. van Wees and T. T. Palstra, Adv.
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Concluding Remark and Outlook Subramanian, N. M. Zimmerman, J. E. Anthony, T. N. Jackson and D.
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4. M. W. Rowell, M. A. Topinka, M. D. McGehee, H.-J. Prall, G.
This article for the first time evaluates the feasibility of a pure Dennler, N. S. Sariciftci, L. Hu and G. Gruner, Appli. Phys.Lett., 2006,
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8 | J. Name., 2012, 00, 1-3 This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012
Page 9 of 9 Energy & Environmental Science

Graphical Abstract:

Energy & Environmental Science Accepted Manuscript

A multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) can be fabricated using commercially available printing
paper, which shows comparable functionalities with the conventional organic PCBs but 100 times
less environmental impact.