The world is constantly changing and of course we must change to move forward with it. In this sense, investigations regularly bring news of, for example, new, more sustainable ways to create the products we use in our daily lives.
Thus, more recent data indicates that mushroom shell can be used as a substrate to create biodegradable electronic chips.
Mushroom peel to make biodegradable chips
With the demand to produce more and more electronic chips to meet the needs of the market, the industry is facing a short and long term problem of contamination of these same components. As such, it is necessary to find solutions to deal with this problem that affects us all.
Thus, scientific investigations by Austrian scientists may have now found an environmentally friendly alternative. This is designer research MycelioTronics It consists of using fungal skin as a substrate to create biodegradable polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) (printed circuit boards). The researchers found that once the skin was removed and dried, it could develop many of the properties found in the PCBs used in every electronic device on the market.
The research relies on the fungus Ganoderma lucidum to produce chips and PCBs, whose skin is thin and flexible and can be folded more than 2,000 times, while maintaining its structural integrity. Moreover, it is also a good insulator and can withstand temperatures above 200 degrees, which is more than PCBs can handle.
But, as usual, all of this must be applied in practice to see if it is applicable or not. Thus, the researchers have already conducted several experiments where they cover the dry skin of mushrooms with a layer of copper, chromium and gold in order to improve conductivity. Furthermore, they used a laser to print the conductive tracks and found that the product behaved like a PCB, with the added advantage of being biodegradable.
Ganoderma lucidum is a very popular type of mushroom in Asia, also known as Reishi and used in traditional Chinese medicine for over 4,000 years. Some describe it as the mushroom of immortality.
So who knows that in a few years the chips of our technological devices will be based on this fungus, thus avoiding huge amounts of waste?
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