Dissolving circuit boards in water sounds better than shredding and burning
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There is a ton of flake gold that is lost because ewaste uses precious metals. This would make recovery much cheaper, and use less hazardous chemicals.
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That's nice that the board dissolves and things fall off it, but how does that help de-solder the components from the copper traces and vias? (The important part that makes the boards work and is missing in these glamor shots) I'm guessing that you just end up with a giant tangle of ICs, resistors, capacitors all globbed up in a tangle.
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Deliciously. After a few years of continuous use they're golden brown, air baked and can come in BBQ, sour cream and onion or dill pickle flavours.
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90°C in hot water sounds impressive, but the chips on your board can reach 90°C. Is a computer on the edge of overheating in a humid environment going to start delaminating?
Don't get me wrong; it's cool stuff, but this board wouldn't survive the accelerated life testing (an autoclave) that you generally run computer components through. I just can't help but be skeptical of the lifetime survivability of something that will reach its delamination temperature and at that point will just need water, which the air is full of in many places, to catastrophically fail.
Don't get me wrong; it's cool stuff, but this board wouldn't survive the accelerated life testing (an autoclave) that you generally run computer components through. I just can't help but be skeptical of the lifetime survivability of something that will reach its delamination temperature and at that point will just need water, which the air is full of in many places, to catastrophically fail.
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
I was shaking my head at the title until I read the dissolving process requires very hot water. Intriguing.
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Same. While having waste that breaks down easily is good, it's easy to focus too hard on that and forget that you also want it to hold together before it becomes waste. E.g. the people behind paper straws seem to have forgotten that latter part...
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But a whole lot of especially consumer electronics - the kind that are often tossed after a year or two - never see anywhere near that environment. Obviously not for use in vehicles, aircraft and other more critical situations but that tablet that is going to get tossed after a few years just might be a good use case.
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I think we'd need to know a lot more before jumping to the conclusion that airborne humidity under high heat for short periods of time will result in huge failures.
I love Ars but this thread is giving me a "No shit, don't you think they've thought of that?" vibe
"wouldn't survive?" based on what data? It's pure conjecture at this point. Material science is crazy complex and some of yall are sounding like the "Why doesnt SpaceX just use parachutes" crowd
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"Do not get the SoluBoard wet."
"Do not power the SoluBoard on after midnight."
Personally, I think if they go this route, they need to coat the boards in something that deteriorates under IR but is waterproof, or something similar, so we don't end up with gremlins in our electronics.
"Do not power the SoluBoard on after midnight."
Personally, I think if they go this route, they need to coat the boards in something that deteriorates under IR but is waterproof, or something similar, so we don't end up with gremlins in our electronics.
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To the "it's gonna melt when it gets hot in a humid environment" crowd: the first device being made with this tech is a mouse. If your mouse ever reaches 90C you have bigger problems than it breaking down.
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What are the dielectric parameters like? How about high frequency loss tangents and variability? FR4 is already on the edge of performance requirements for high frequency RF, memory lines, and PCIE lines. There are many applications that don't care but many more that do.
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Relax. With that kind of fiber weave, you're looking at cheap disposable consumer stuff, not Terabit-scale switches...
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The first place my mind goes is all the places this could go wrong, but obviously it survives reflow temperatures, and their website says it has the similar flame retardant properties to other leading substrates (presumably FR-4, where that's literally what the FR means...) They also say it's been designed to deal with water-based PCB manufacturing processes (since etchant is usually aqueous and hot, another concern) and high humidity.
Their website is light on other details that are rather important to PCB manufacturing, such as what sort of stack-ups you can have (for example, modern motherboards are often 12-16 layers of copper and FR-4) and how well controlled the dielectric constant is, which is important with high speed stuff. The fiber component makes me think very dense stackups may not work, and in their FAQ they even say they're investigating only single and double sided PCBs. Which means these aren't coming to your laptop or desktop main boards any time soon, but could be useful in the power supply or other less complicated pieces. Lots of stuff doesn't need more than a double-sided board.
Would I drop this into a product for a customer right now? Nope. But if my board houses would offer it as an option, I'd certainly start playing with it to see how well it works and how it compares on other manufacturability concerns. Seems like an intriguing idea and a useful step forward to a more recyclable electronics industry.
Their website is light on other details that are rather important to PCB manufacturing, such as what sort of stack-ups you can have (for example, modern motherboards are often 12-16 layers of copper and FR-4) and how well controlled the dielectric constant is, which is important with high speed stuff. The fiber component makes me think very dense stackups may not work, and in their FAQ they even say they're investigating only single and double sided PCBs. Which means these aren't coming to your laptop or desktop main boards any time soon, but could be useful in the power supply or other less complicated pieces. Lots of stuff doesn't need more than a double-sided board.
Would I drop this into a product for a customer right now? Nope. But if my board houses would offer it as an option, I'd certainly start playing with it to see how well it works and how it compares on other manufacturability concerns. Seems like an intriguing idea and a useful step forward to a more recyclable electronics industry.
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Single and double means the dielectric constant isn't likely such a big issue either; usually you're at more than two layers if you're doing high speed.
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I mean, to be fair - it's not uncommon to see early prototypes get announced with some glaring flaw that's going to be solved "later" (or often actually "never", and it never becomes a production-ready product). Even if they thought of a problem, it doesn't mean they solved it. Skepticism is reasonable.
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Oh, no doubt the porn industry will solve that problem in short order, if these boards become commonplace.
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I'm with you, but I would also expect that a company making a folding phone would have definitely thought about what happens when you open and close it, or considered that it might be used outside of a clean room, and that a scientific journal might have thought to check someone's credentials or even read their name out loud before appointing them editor.
This is definitely an interesting announcement, but I'm going to wait until this kind of technology has been used in real world situations for a little longer before I rush out and replace all of my circuit boards with mini-wheats.
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Considering that after shredding the PCB's, a tangled mess of bits and pieces is what you get anyhow, only with pieces of PCB's mixed in, you'd think not having the pieces of PCB's mixed in would be a good thing.
Based on my read, it makes separating out the PCB bits one less thing to worry about. It's probably not the panacea for the electronics industry its creators think it will be, but eliminating one step in the process may help reduce costs.
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First reaction: That dissolved board looks disgusting...
Second reaction: It might be useful for cheap toys, really "dumb" applications like signs made of discrete LEDs, etc. But not for anything remotely high-speed, RF, and probably not fine-pitch either based on the photos.
Still, a step in the right direction, and it will probably improve over time.
But: Normal PCB manufacturing involves a lot of nasty chemicals (reused to a degree) to apply and shape the copper traces etc, and since that wasn't mentioned, I'll guess the sane problems persist for this material as well.
Second reaction: It might be useful for cheap toys, really "dumb" applications like signs made of discrete LEDs, etc. But not for anything remotely high-speed, RF, and probably not fine-pitch either based on the photos.
Still, a step in the right direction, and it will probably improve over time.
But: Normal PCB manufacturing involves a lot of nasty chemicals (reused to a degree) to apply and shape the copper traces etc, and since that wasn't mentioned, I'll guess the sane problems persist for this material as well.
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"Why is my Eco-Fleshlight dead?" ;-)
Couldn't resist. Clearly there ARE applications for a number of consumer electronics that would benefit from diversion from current fab processes, and some that may not. Not everything e-waste is our bleeding edge gaming rig & there's a lot of basic mass market e-"stuff" that we could make an attempt at diverting. This is a reasonable "Not making the perfect the enemy of the good." instance that requires further interest.
Couldn't resist. Clearly there ARE applications for a number of consumer electronics that would benefit from diversion from current fab processes, and some that may not. Not everything e-waste is our bleeding edge gaming rig & there's a lot of basic mass market e-"stuff" that we could make an attempt at diverting. This is a reasonable "Not making the perfect the enemy of the good." instance that requires further interest.
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Environmentally, this looks a lot better than traditional PCBs, but what is the non-toxic polymer? What are its environmental effects?
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I'm loving the paradigm shifting thinking of this. Why can't all PCBs be highly recyclable? It's just a matter of applying the grey matter and resources to this conundrum.
If it inspires other PCB makers with competitive and more environmental solutions then it can only be a Good Thing™.
If it inspires other PCB makers with competitive and more environmental solutions then it can only be a Good Thing™.
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I'm concerned about lamination stability on multi-layer boards, because if they break down at 90c water, they're already going to get close to 90c from some components already. It's going to be interesting to see how well this scales up.
If they're looking for a place to start, custom board houses like PCBWay would be a good one. If I could take a board I no longer need, or a failed one, and drop it in boiling water to take the board apart and make it easier to harvest components, that seems like a win to me, and such boards are less likely to be at the edge cases for PCBs, like power or radio applications where the dielectric separation of the layers is vital to having the board work right.
If they're looking for a place to start, custom board houses like PCBWay would be a good one. If I could take a board I no longer need, or a failed one, and drop it in boiling water to take the board apart and make it easier to harvest components, that seems like a win to me, and such boards are less likely to be at the edge cases for PCBs, like power or radio applications where the dielectric separation of the layers is vital to having the board work right.
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Well, maybe useful for simple boards. Can a multi-layer board be constructed with this material?
Dissolving in water is nice because it is readily available. That said, it might well be that some sort of plastic polymer which dissolves in acetone or some other organic solvent might work better at industrial scale for recovering the monomer starting material. Where "better" is some combination of "faster" and "needs less solvent". It could also dissolve some of the IC packaging (if plastic) or not (if ceramic).
Dissolving in water is nice because it is readily available. That said, it might well be that some sort of plastic polymer which dissolves in acetone or some other organic solvent might work better at industrial scale for recovering the monomer starting material. Where "better" is some combination of "faster" and "needs less solvent". It could also dissolve some of the IC packaging (if plastic) or not (if ceramic).
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Me too. Still, it is Ars and many of the responses make it clear they "had thought of that". Thanks to adespoton, NDHolmes and others.
But one data point was suspiciously absent: price.
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Is there a reason it even has to be able to be broken down in this manner, especially given how many widespread use cases will get hotter than 90c and at first glance it looks like detaching the components may even be harder if the substrate is no longer two dimensional and consistent across all boards of that type?
It seems like the two issues are removing the PCB substrate as cleanly and easily as possible, and making sure that as much as possible can be recovered while minimizing toxic/non-degrading waste, and this may help with the latter but make the former harder for reliable mechanized recovery of components?
Something that can be left to degrade over a longer time or requiring a more robust reusable solvent seems like a simpler solution, especially if the primary objective is to simplify the waste stream by segregating the worthless substrate from the valuable components?
It seems like the two issues are removing the PCB substrate as cleanly and easily as possible, and making sure that as much as possible can be recovered while minimizing toxic/non-degrading waste, and this may help with the latter but make the former harder for reliable mechanized recovery of components?
Something that can be left to degrade over a longer time or requiring a more robust reusable solvent seems like a simpler solution, especially if the primary objective is to simplify the waste stream by segregating the worthless substrate from the valuable components?
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When someone says it only breaks down at 90C in water, I immediately think "will it degrade at lower temp in a humid environment over the course of a decade".
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DIY mechanical keyboards would be a great application for this material, especially since the keyswitches themselves can often cost $1 each or more. I dabble in atypical keyboard layouts as a hobby, including designing boards in KiCAD (or altering other people's open-source designs) for manufacture by PCBWay and similar companies.
Hotswap sockets for keyswitches exist, but they're their own added expense, and can cause reliability problems as well as trace routing issues. And I've ripped the contacts out of a few switches in ham-fisted efforts to desolder them with a solder sucker and solder braid. It'd be great to just chuck a failed prototype in simmering water, even if it means opening up all the switches to help them dry.
Obviously it's a drop in the bucket compared to the worldwide ewaste problem generated by broken/obsolete phone & PC hardware, but aside from environmental friendliness, it'd be a convenient material to have around for prototype PCBs and protoboards.
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