Money might not uprise on Tree , but before long electronic parts might . In a bid to try and make the production of electronic devices more sustainable and reduce waste , researchershave manage to spring up a semiconductor chip made almost totally out of wood . The paperis published inNature Communications .
The scientists say that this show the ability to supplant the support layer found in all information processing system scrap with what they ’re call “ cellulose nanofibril ( CNF ) , ” a biodegradable stuff made from tree . With consumer electronics typically made from oil colour - free-base plastic and other potentially toxic materials , the squad desire that by move to more sustainable fabric that some of the problems of non - biodegradable waste might be alleviated .
“ The bulk of material in a chip is support , ” saysZhenqiang Ma , one of the source of the newspaper . This keep spend a penny up around 99 % of the computer silicon chip . “ We only use less than a couple of micrometer gauge for everything else . Now the chips are so secure you’re able to put them in the woods and fungus will cheapen it . They become as safe as fertilizer , ” Ma explain .
According to the investigator , over 426,000 cellphone were throw in the trashevery dayin 2007 in the United States alone . With such rapid developments in tech , electronics are becoming progressively disposable and with such massive consumption of non - biodegradable mathematical product , the environmental costs are continuing to mount . sum to this the frequent use of cherished non - renewable instinctive resources and it ’s not hard to see that such consumerism is not peculiarly sustainable .
turn from theUniversity of Wisconsin - Madison , the team has been explore sustainable nanomaterial since 2009 . By breaking wood down into even smaller social unit than the fibre typically used in report production , they started looking at woodwind instrument on the nano scale . From this , they were able-bodied to produce the very firm , compromising , transparent cellulose nanofibril paper . The trouble with using Natalie Wood in electronics , however , is getting the material unruffled enough and stop it from expanding .
“ You do n’t want it to expand or flinch too much . Wood is a natural hydroscopic material and could attract moisture from the line and expand , ” explains Zhiyong Cai , lead author . They were able-bodied to get around this by effectively covering the material in a thin layer of glue . “ With an epoxy resin coating on the Earth’s surface of the CNF , we lick both the aerofoil smoothness and the wet roadblock . ”
The researcher desire that the impressive flexibility of the material means it could be wide used in information processing system chips , and that the biodegradable prop of this new textile will help make the electronics industry more sustainable and dilute reliance on the toxic material Ga arsenide presently used in many products .
