Arduino is engaged on making its in style growth boards extra eco-friendly, investigating the potential to switching in direction of a bio-based PCB substrate â as a part of a European mission dubbed Desire4EU.
“Arduino is dedicated to creating sustainability an ongoing precedence by concrete tasks and international collaborations every single day of the 12 months,” the corporate claims of its environmental credentials. “Probably the most thrilling steps in that course is our work on bio-based printed circuit boards (PCBs) â introduced by co-founder David Cuartielles throughout this 12 months’s Arduino Days. It is an effort to basically rethink how electronics are made, used, and ultimately disposed of.”
Arduino is not alone in caring in regards to the affect of electronics on the setting, nor in regards to the rising e-waste drawback the world is dealing with. Accordingly, it is joined the Desire4EU mission â alongside a spread of European researchers and engineers â and is engaged on constructing bio-boards: PCBs constructed from extra environmentally-friendly substrate.
“The primary working prototypes have already been manufactured utilizing a brand new flame-retardant composite made out of PLA-flax,” the corporate says of its progress on the mission, “as a substitute of conventional fiberglass and epoxy. And sure, it really works: the staff has already efficiently replicated Arduino Nano and UNO boards utilizing this new bio-based substrate. Meeting with the brand new materials continues to be appropriate with customary floor mounted expertise (SMT), that means no costly new infrastructure is required. Additionally, the brand new boards use optimized layouts to enhance yield and reliability â even with double-sided designs and through-hole vias.”
There are different benefits, too, with the brand new boards being each biocompatible and biodegradable â and whereas they want their solder to be flowed at decrease temperatures to stop board injury, Arduino spins that as a optimistic too with the promise of decreased power consumption throughout manufacturing.
The bio-boards (backside) are designed to be higher for the setting each throughout manufacturing and at end-of-life. (đ·: GĂ©czy et al)
Whereas Arduino is not fairly prepared to maneuver manufacturing over to its bio-boards simply but, it’s getting ready to offer away samples: “As a part of the Desire4EU mission,” the corporate says, “we’ll be gifting away 1,000 beta boards beginning in April 2026 â constructed on this new sustainable substrate and that includes an open-source design with LoRa wi-fi connectivity.”
Extra info is out there on the Desire4EU web site, whereas a paper detailing the PLA/flax substrate has been printed to the journal Nanotechnology underneath open-access phrases.
Principal article picture courtesy of Desire4EU.
