DESIgning and REcycling sustainable Electronic boards for a EUropean circular economy

Introduction

DESIRE4EU aims at proving the concept of a radically new sustainable approach to produce, use, and recycle electronic printed circuit boards (PCB) that combine technical performance, economic and ecological efficiency throughout their life cycle.

Vision

The project's vision is of sustainable, circular PCB manufactured in Europe using bio-based and biodegradable materials. It disrupts current paradigms and significantly reduces harmful waste, enabling:

• Fast and ecological copper recovery
• Above 70wt% of PCB ultimate waste elimination
• 1-2% electronics sector CO2 emissions decrease

This is achieved by combining material science, green chemistry, electronics, environmental microbiology, Life Cycle, and Value Chain Assessments.

Holistic Approach

Our holistic approach considers boards as a complete system and develops a proof of concept and guidelines for exemplary, fully circular sustainable electronics solutions. This contributes to European leadership, resilience, and independence.

We envision a world-first by 2030: industrially credible, compliant, bio-based, rigid boards, with an innovative and environmentally friendly recycling process for critical metals.

Objectives

DESIRE4EU has 4 SMART specific objectives:

1. The complete assembly of a technology compliant bio-based multilayer PCB.
2. An environmentally friendly and time-efficient bioleaching process.
3. A circular by design approach, materialized by guidelines for further uptake.
4. An advanced, cost-effective but large proof of concept attracting 2000 to 5000 students, responsible citizens, and industries, from learners to prosumers.

Consortium

The consortium gathers 8 academic and private partners from 5 European countries, including 2 SMEs and 1 start-up. DESIRE4EU is managed by GINP, represented by Full Professor P. Xavier, who has extensive scientific and management experience.

Expected Outcomes

The partners expect at least 7 Open Access articles and 3 patents for this disruptive technology to be exploited in the field of class 2 rigid boards, with a potential market of 436 million.