[HN Gopher] Printed circuit board substrates derived from lignoc...
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Printed circuit board substrates derived from lignocellulose
nanofibrils
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 19 points
Date : 2025-10-27 16:03 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| throwup238 wrote:
| I suspect this material is dead on arrival because they don't
| compare how fire retardant it is compared to FR4 or evaluate
| whether it meets the UL 94V-0 fire safety standard.
| Arrath wrote:
| Good point but perhaps coatings or impregnated fire retardant
| compounds can be utilized?
| Y_Y wrote:
| > The research outlines the process of fibrillating lignin-rich
| cellulose pulp at 10 kW/h per kg into LCNF
|
| That unit doesn't look right.
|
| Why can't we all just use SI anyway :(
| elcritch wrote:
| That is SI? Well metric. Sounds like the liganization process
| uses electricity to create. There's similar units used in
| electrochemistry to indicate how much energy is required.
| jchw wrote:
| 10 kilowatts is 10,000 watts, which is 10,000 joules per
| second. So... 10,000 joules per second per hour per kilogram.
| Wait... _What_? What in the hell does "10kW/h" mean?!
|
| Hopefully they meant kWh. Kilowatt-hours per kg makes a ton
| more sense. That's just a measure of energy spent per unit of
| mass produced, right?
|
| (P.S.: though all things considered, it seems a shame that we
| use kilowatt-hours instead of something simpler like
| kilojoules... but I guess that would be harder to intuit in
| some cases?)
| userbinator wrote:
| _This study underscores the potential of wood-derived
| nanomaterials like LCNF to reduce electronic waste (e-waste)
| associated with conventional PCB materials and promote the
| development of a more eco-friendly electronics, contributing to
| sustainable, high-performance ecoPCBs and advancing green
| technology._
|
| So many trendy eco-virtue-signaling buzzwords, but as anyone who
| has worked with attempting to repair FR-1/FR-2 (SRBP) PCBs will
| tell you, they've been making them out of cellulose-derived
| materials for around a century; but they just aren't very good.
|
| "Sustainable" = "doesn't last very long and is impossible to
| repair, sustaining the business of selling you a new one".
| hinkley wrote:
| I've heard the rayon process, which can take (m)any natural
| fiber source and convert it into something vaguely like a
| synthetic silk, has quite a pollution footprint. The more you
| have to process the fibers to be like a niche or synthetic
| fiber the more it becomes greenwashing.
|
| Method Inc went through a phase where they made containers out
| of virgin materials because the overall ecological footprint
| was several times better than the best we could hope for
| plastic recycling, and that was before we found out plastic
| recycling is half sham. A lot of the trick was making thinner
| containers out of specialty materials that were lower volume
| than the waste stream from plastic recycling. Eventually they
| figured out a recyclable material that is as light as the
| disposable ones, so they get the best of both worlds.
| Unfortunately they only use those for hand soap refills.
| xg15 wrote:
| Yup, this was also what irked me in the rationale of this
| paper: Combatting e-waste is a good cause, but this is not what
| the paper is doing - it's _alleviating some of the harmful
| side-effects_ of e-waste.
|
| The root cause that I'd like to see addressed is an industry
| that has incentives to churn out unrepairable throwaway
| electronics. But stuff like this that try to greenwash e-waste
| would make it _less_ likely that the root cause is addressed,
| not more.
| hinkley wrote:
| We've got people making circuits from woody plant fibers and
| people making circuits from microbes that eat woody plant fibers.
|
| Definitely want to keep those two factories separate. And don't
| get the former wet.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| This story gives me nightmares!
|
| Why? I recently had a repair bill of more than $12,000 for my Kia
| EV6, after rats got under the hood and chewed through a critical
| wiring harness.
|
| Of course rats will chew through most anything, but the EV6
| apparently has soy-based insulation on the wiring instead of
| traditional plastic. So it is extra tasty for rats!
|
| GEICO covered everything beyond my $1000 comprehensive
| deductible, but I don't want to be thought of as an irresponsible
| policyholder, especially with the great rate they gave me on this
| car - literally half of my previous policy.
|
| So I have taken extensive countermeasures. If anyone is curious,
| feel free to ask and I will list them.
| rtaylorgarlock wrote:
| Jaw dropped on reading this. The biodegradable Mercedes
| harnesses of the 90s followed the Volvo harnesses of the 80s
| (iirc). I thought we'd worked that out of the automotive
| engineering world by now. I'm not funded by the petroleum or
| rubber industry, yet i also can't help but wonder what would
| drive technical product managers to make a notable error?
| Wiring issues in cases aren't cheap problems to fix, nor do
| they fix themselves, nor increase longevity...
| variaga wrote:
| Not one mention of the material's dialectric constant
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