A study by two Virginia Tech research teams potentially addresses the ever-growing e-waste problem facing the world through circuit boards made from recyclable materials, which could make electronics easier to break down and reuse.
https://www.eenewsembedded.com/, Jun. 03, 2025 –
Michael Bartlett, associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Josh Worch, assistant professor of chemistry, have created a new class of circuit materials. With significant work from their team of postdoctoral and graduate student researchers, including Dong Hae Ho, Meng Jiang, and Ravi Tutika, the new circuit boards are recyclable, electrically conductive, reconfigurable, and self-healing after damage. Yet they retain the strength and durability of traditional circuit board plastics.
According to a 2024 report issued by the United Nations, the amount of e-waste worldwide has almost doubled in the past 12 years, from 34 billion to 62 billion kilograms. This is equivalent to 1.55 million shipping trucks, and it’s estimated to reach 82 billion kilograms by 2030. Just 13.8 billion kilograms, or about 20 percent of the total, is expected to be recycled, a number projected to remain flat.
The new material starts with a vitrimer, a dynamic polymer that can be reshaped and recycled. The polymer is combined with droplets of liquid metal that carry the electric current, just as rigid metals do in a traditional circuit.
A completely different approach from other recyclable or flexible electronics, the combination of high-performance, adaptable polymers with electrically conductive liquid metals makes the new circuits highly resilient.
“Our material is unlike conventional electronic composites,” said Bartlett. “The circuit boards are remarkably resilient and functional. Even under mechanical deformation or damage, they still work.”
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Recycling traditional circuit boards involves several energy-intensive deconstruction steps and still yields large amounts of waste. Billions of dollars of valuable metal components are lost in the process.
Recycling the new vitrimer-based circuit board is straightforward and can be accomplished in multiple ways.
“Traditional circuit boards are made from permanent thermosets that are incredibly difficult to recycle,” said Worch. “Here, our dynamic composite material can be healed or reshaped if damaged by applying heat, and the electrical performance will not suffer. Modern circuit boards cannot do this.”
The vitrimer circuit boards can also be deconstructed at the end of their life using alkaline hydrolysis, facilitating the recovery of key components such as the liquid metal and LEDs. Fully reusing all components of the conductive composites in a closed-loop process remains a goal for future research.
While it may not be possible to curb the amount of electronics that the world’s consumers discard, this work represents a key step toward keeping more electronics out of landfills.
Virginia Tech supported this research through the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science and Bartlett’s National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career Development (CAREER) award.