Issue 37, 2022

Integrating recyclable polymers into thermoelectric devices for green electronics

Abstract

Electronic waste (e-waste) recycling is one of the central frameworks of the circular economy. However, most e-wastes consist of both organic and inorganic components, which significantly limits their clean separation and recycling for repurposing. Herein, we demonstrate the use of a recyclable polymer (vitrimer) as the encapsulation matrix to construct a recyclable thermoelectric device. An epoxy vitrimer containing dynamic silyl ether linkage was employed as the device encapsulation to provide mechanical support, conformability to surfaces, and more importantly, reprocessability. Benefiting from these features, the resultant vitrimer encapsulated thermoelectric device not only showed an enhanced power generation ability relative to the parent device, but also exhibited new alluring characteristics, such as strong mechanical properties, operability under deformed conditions, clean separation capability, and recyclability. Remarkably, the refabricated device retains its power generation performance, demonstrating the reliability of this method. The strategy reported here can be generally applied to other electronic devices, therefore contributing towards sustainable and circular utilization of resources.

Graphical abstract: Integrating recyclable polymers into thermoelectric devices for green electronics

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 জানু. 2022
Accepted
21 এপ্রিল 2022
First published
21 এপ্রিল 2022

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022,10, 19787-19796

Integrating recyclable polymers into thermoelectric devices for green electronics

J. Zheng, S. F. D. Solco, C. J. E. Wong, S. A. Sia, X. Y. Tan, J. Cao, J. C. C. Yeo, W. Yan, Q. Zhu, Q. Yan, J. Wu, A. Suwardi and Z. Li, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2022, 10, 19787 DOI: 10.1039/D2TA00386D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements