In 2014, consumers around the world discarded about 42 million metric tons of e-waste, according to a report by the United Nations University. This poses an environmental and human threat because electronic products are made up of many components, some of which are toxic or non-degradable. To help address the issue, Xinlong Wang and colleagues sought to develop a degradable material that could be used for electronic substrates or insulators.
The researchers started with polylactic acid, or PLA, which is a bioplastic that can be derived from corn starch or other natural sources and is already used in the packaging, electronics and automotive industries. PLA by itself, however, is brittle and flammable, and doesn't have the right electrical properties to be a good electronic substrate or insulator. But the researchers found that blending metal-organic framework nanoparticles with PLA resulted in a transparent film with the mechanical, electrical and flame retardant properties that make the material a promising candidate for use in electronics.
Original Study: DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.6b04204
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday April 21 2017, @01:45PM (3 children)
Degradable yes, and with nanoparticles it will poison the environment like a time bomb once the protective plastic material degrades enough.
Hey let's make our products free of poison A, instead we use poison B. Great!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @11:40PM (1 child)
It"s ok, the metal-organic particles are probably just things like methyl mercury.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 22 2017, @12:15AM
Nano-particles are too small for organisms to handle properly, hence the problem of health issues. And they may also be hardly biodegradable so they persist.
As for human behavior, we now succeeded to pollute the space orbits on Earth to near the point of not being able to use it. And there's even trash on Mars.. go figure.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday April 24 2017, @10:15AM
Degradable components? Sheesh, Chinese manufacturers beat us to it by more than a decade [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by YeaWhatevs on Friday April 21 2017, @01:51PM (7 children)
It is technically true the chemistry can start from cornstarch. However, they say "from cornstarch" to make it seem like you could just cook this stuff up in your kitchen. When I see the youtube video showing you how to do this without expensive equipment, chemicals and catalysts they'll have earned the right to flippantly throw the "from cornstarch" out there.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @02:06PM (6 children)
Happy now [green-plastics.net] Gripey McComplainalot?
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by YeaWhatevs on Friday April 21 2017, @03:13PM (5 children)
This is not plastic, try actually reading. They talk about plastic, but then go on to say "this is NOT plastic". This is cornstarch cooked down into a goop, you can make better material by combining milk and vinager. They have confused chemical illiterates like yourself by calling it "starch plastic", but it is nothing of the sort.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 21 2017, @06:43PM (1 child)
Perhaps you should take your own advice:
So if you have a project where you are making starch plastic at home, it is NOT technically “PLA plastic.” But you are correct in calling it “start plastic.”* We talk a little bit more about the difference between PLA and starch plastic in another article here.
*I think he meant to write "starch" plastic. It's fairly clear from the context and link in the article.
(Score: 2) by YeaWhatevs on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:42AM
Just stop. They tried to refute me and show there was a way to DIY make plastic, but failed. No, much as I would like to see DIY plastic this is not it. A polymer it is, but then so is jello. To be called plastic it must have properties (long chain) that allow us to make useful items like utinsels and bottles and toys that last. This starch recipie can be fun to try, but ultimately useless for those things. Not plastic.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @07:00PM (1 child)
My goodness, McComplainalot, besides being obtuse you are also very rude. You should take heed of the very early lessons from back in the Usenet days: don't get in a dick size competition on the Internet. You can end up looking quite the fool when it turns out people you call "chemical illiterates" are actually organic chemists.
Yes it is plastic. It is a starch polymer, though not a polylactic acid [opensourceecology.org] polymer. If you want to do that at home [rsc.org] you need to make or get some lactic acid and concentrate it and add it to some easy to obtain catalysts. Perhaps it isn't within the capability of your "chemical illiterate", but it is achievable at the homebrew scale on the level as those who make their own biodiesel or do home smelting.
(Score: 2) by YeaWhatevs on Sunday April 23 2017, @01:46AM
Jello is a polymer too, but don't call it plastic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @09:41PM
> you can make better material by combining milk and [vinegar]
...and formaldehyde.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galalith [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @09:38PM (1 child)
I've read a few articles like this here and on that one green site. While I do applaud the effort to help the environment, and I am concerned about the durability of these "bio-degradable" electronics. I'm not a big fan of planned obsolescence. I get concerned reading these articles that should this technology become mainstream, all electronics will be made using it, and nothing will last. Thus you have to keep buying electronics over and over again. Just what the powers that be want. Used market? forget it. Repair anything? forget it. Heck maybe just a humid environment will be enough to start the "degradation" process, and render your electronics non-functional. Plus, what's the environmental impact of having to manufacture similar things over and over again, instead of keeping the same unit longer? It might actually be worse for the environment.
Written on a ten year old computer.
(Score: 2) by tizan on Friday April 21 2017, @10:43PM
You are among the minority...at least from my observation...it is different in lesser developed part of the world though.
I am the only one in my family and colleagues who has a cell phone which is 5 years old and a laptop 8 years old.
all around me change cell phone every 2 to 3 years and change laptop/tablets every 2 to 5 years.
Most of these are well functioning and non bio-degradable...but nobody re-use them...a smalll fraction are donated to some charity but most end up in the dump or the so called recycling system which ends up heavily polluting some place in China or India as far as i know.
So if all the plastic rot and the metal can be salvaged or kept from contaminating water then i am for it because it will reduce dump volume and trash from a large number of electronic consumers in the developed world. In the less developed world the majority of the people tend to keep and use electronics for longer time...so a life of 10 years or more is good for these customers.