Abstract
ABSTRACTThe growing ubiquity of electronic devices is increasingly consuming substantial energy and rare resources for materials fabrication, as well as creating expansive volumes of toxic waste. This is not sustainable. Electronic biological materials (e-biologics) that are produced with microbes, or designed with microbial components as the guide for synthesis, are a potential green solution. Some e-biologics can be fabricated from renewable feedstocks with relatively low energy inputs, often while avoiding the harsh chemicals used for synthesizing more traditional electronic materials. Several are completely free of toxic components, can be readily recycled, and offer unique features not found in traditional electronic materials in terms of size, performance, and opportunities for diverse functionalization. An appropriate investment in the concerted multidisciplinary collaborative research required to identify and characterize e-biologics and to engineer materials and devices based on e-biologics could be rewarded with a new “green age” of sustainable electronic materials and devices.
Highlights
The growing ubiquity of electronic devices is increasingly consuming substantial energy and rare resources for materials fabrication, as well as creating expansive volumes of toxic waste
What if electronic components and devices could be made from sustainable organic feedstocks or from carbon dioxide and renewable electricity? What if they could be synthesized with no toxic chemicals at room temperature with water as the “solvent”? What if the electronic materials produced this way were completely nontoxic, and when your electronic device was broken or outdated, these components could be thrown on your compost pile or converted to methane at the local municipal waste treatment plant?
Microbes are one of the most promising catalysts for fabricating e-biologics, in part because of their highly evolved capacity to work at the nanoscale desirable for most electronic devices, as well as the ease of sustainably growing microbes on renewable feedstocks for inexpensive mass produc
Summary
E-Biologics: Fabrication of Sustainable Electronics with “Green” Biological Materials
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