Post on 29-Aug-2018
Life Cycle Assessment of Paper Based
Printed Circuits
Qiansu Wan
Licentiate Thesis in Information and Communication
Technology
School of Information and Communication Technology
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden 2017
TRITA-ICT 2017:24 ISBN 978-91-7729-636-2
KTH School of Information and Communication Technology
SE-164 40 Kista SWEDEN
Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av Kungl Tekniska högskolan framlägges till offentlig granskning för avläggande av licentiatexamen i informations- och kommunikationsteknik måndagen den 29 januari 2018 klockan 10:00 i Ka-Sal C (Sal Sven-Olof Öhrvik), Electrum, Kungl Tekniska högskolan, Kistagången 16, Kista.
© Qiansu Wan, November 2017
Tryck: Universitetsservice US AB
iii
Abstract
Printed circuit boards have been massively manufactured and wildly used in all
kinds of electronic devices during people’s daily life for more than thirty years since
the last century. As a highly integrated device mainly consists of silicon base, an
etched copper layer and other soldered components, massive production of printed
circuit boards are considered to be environmentally unfriendly due to the wet
chemical manufacturing mode and lack of recycling ability. On the other hand, the
newly invented ink jet printing technology enables cost-effective manufacturing of
flexible, thin and disposable electrical devices, which avoid acid etching process and
lead to less toxic emissions into the environment. It is important to consider life cycle
analysis for quantitative environmental impact evaluation and comparison of both
printed circuit boards and printed electronics to enhance the sustainability of a new
technology with product design and development.
This thesis first reviews the current approaches to conventional and modern
printing methods, as well as the state-of-the-art analysis of sustainability and
environmental assessment methodologies. In the second part, a typical ink jet printed
electronic device is introduced (an active flexible cable for wearable electrocardiogram
monitoring). This active cable is designed for the interconnection between bio
electrodes and central medical devices for bio signal transmission. As the active cable
consists of five different metal transmission traces which are formed by printing
conductive ink onto paper substrates, different shielding methods are investigated to
ensure high quality bio signal transmission. Specifically, the results prove that passive
shielding methods can significantly decrease the cross talk between different
transmission traces, enabling the transmitting of bio signals for wearable ECG
monitoring.
This research also explores environmental issues related to printed electronics. For the
full life cycle of printed electronics, we focused not only on quantitative environmental
emissions to air, fresh water, sea and industrial soil, but also on resource consumption and
impacts analysis. Finally, comparative environmental performance evaluation of
traditional cables and ink jet printed active cables are made to examine the environmental
impact and sustainability of both technologies, and the results show the strengths and
weaknesses of each technology by analysis and assessment.
Keywords: Printed Electronics, Environment, PCB, Life Cycle assessment, Emissions
iv
Sammanfattning
Tryckta kretskort har massproducerats och har använts flitigt i all sorts elektronik de senaste
decennierna. Eftersom högintegrerade komponenter består såväl av kisel som etsade
kopparlager och lödda komponenter så är massproduktionen av kretskorten inte ansedd som
miljövänlig beroende på en våtkemi-baserad tillverkningsteknologi och begränsade
återvinningsmöjligheter. Å andra sidan undviker den nyligen utvecklade bläckstråleteknologin
för kostnadseffektiv produktion av tunna och flexibla engångs-komponenter våtetsprocesser
och leder till mindre omfattande giftiga utsläpp i naturen. Det är därför viktigt att utföra
livscykelanalyser för att utvärdera den kvantitativa miljöpåverkan för såväl traditionellt
tryckta kretskort som bläckstråletryckt elektronik samt att kunna bidra till en ökad hållbarhet
för den nya tekniken genom produktdesign och utveckling.
Denna avhandling granskar nuvarande metoder för konventionell och modern tryckteknik,
samt ger en ”state-of-the-art”-analys av deras hållbarhet och miljöpåverkan. Därefter införs,
som exempel på en typisk jetstråletryckt elektronisk komponent, aktiva kablar för bärbar
elektrokardiogram (ECG)-övervakning. Denna aktiva kabel är designad för att signalmässigt
sammanlänka bioelektroderna med de biomedicinska komponenterna. Eftersom den aktiva
kabeln består av fem olika metalänkar som tillverkats med tryckt ledande bläck på
papperssubstrat så undersöks olika skärmningsmetoder för att säkerställa hög kvalitet i
signalöverföringen. Specifikt visar mätresultaten att passiv skärmning märkbart kan minska
överhörning mellan olika transmissionsledningar vilket möjliggör insamling och transmission
av bio-data för bärbar ECG-övervakning.
Avhandlingen undersöker också miljöproblem relaterade till tryckt elektronik. För en
fullständig livscykelanalys har vi inte enbart fokuserat på kvantitativa miljöutsläpp till luft,
färskvatten och hav utan också på resursförbrukning och påverkansanalys. Slutligen jämförs
miljöprestandan för traditionella kablar med bläckstråletryckta kablar för att utreda
miljöpåverkan och hållbarhet för bägge teknikerna. Analysen och utvärderingen visar därmed
på styrkor och svagheter i bägge fallen.
Keywords: Tryckt elektronik, Miljö, Polyklorerade bifenyler, Livscykelanalys, Utsläpp
v
Acknowledgements First, I am especially grateful to my supervisor Prof. Lirong Zheng, for his sense of responsibility, enlightening guidance and incredible patience of my licentiate study and research, as well as the opportunity he provided to me to join the iPack center. I owe my profound attitude to my previous second supervisor Dr. Qiang Chen, for his fruitful advices and encourages all through these years. I sincerely appreciate to Dr. Geng Yang, for his instructive suggestion and support on my first conference and journal paper. Special thanks to Prof. Hannu Tenhunen and Dr. Rajeev Kumar Kanth from Turku University, Finland for their wise inspiration and harmonious collaboration in previous research projects. I would also like to thank all my colleagues and friends at KTH along this journey, Dr. Jian Chen, Dr. Ana Lopez Cabezas, Dr. Botao Shao, Dr. Awet Yemane Weldezion, Dr.Li Xie, Dr. Liang Rong, Dr. Chuanying Zhai, Dr.Qin Zhou and Pei Liu. I want to express my deepest and warmest appreciation to my parents for their endless love and support in my life and this academic career. Last, but not the least, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my wife Jie Gao, thank you, for everything.
Qiansu Wan Stockholm, 2017
vii
Contents
Contents ................................................................................................... vii
List of Figures .......................................................................................... ix
List of Tables ............................................................................................ x
List of Publications .................................................................................. xi Papers included in the thesis: ......................................................................... xi
Papers not included in the thesis: .................................................................. xi
List of Acronyms ...................................................................................... xii
Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................ 1 1.1 Motivation .......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Thesis Aim and Objectives .................................................................................. 2 1.3 Contributions and Thesis Organization ............................................................ 3
Chapter 2 ............................................................................................................ 4
Chapter 3 ............................................................................................................ 4
Chapter 4 ............................................................................................................ 5
Chapter 5 ............................................................................................................ 5
Chapter 2 Life Cycle Assessment ............................................................... 7 2.1 Environmental Life Cycle Assessment ........................................................... 7
2.1.1 Goal and scope definition: ...................................................................... 8
2.1.2 Inventory analysis .................................................................................... 8
2.1.3 Impact assessment .................................................................................... 9
2.1.4 Improvement Assessment ..................................................................... 11
2.2 Variants of Life Cycle Assessment ................................................................... 11 Cradle to grave ................................................................................................ 11
Cradle to gate ................................................................................................... 11
Cradle to cradle ............................................................................................... 11
Gate-to-gate ...................................................................................................... 12
Well-to-wheel ................................................................................................... 12
viii
Economic input–output life cycle assessmen .............................................. 12
Ecologically based LCA .................................................................................. 12
2.3 LCA Software and Database ............................................................................. 12 2.4 Critical issues with LCA .................................................................................... 13 2.5 LCA Related Issues with Printed Electronics ................................................. 13 2.6 Summary .............................................................................................................. 15
Chapter 3 Printed Electronics .................................................................. 17 3.1 Background .......................................................................................................... 17 3.2 Inkjet Printed Flexible Cable .......................................................................... 19
3.2.1 Conception ............................................................................................ 19
3.2.2 Flexible Cable Printing and Feasibility Test ..................................... 19
3.2.3 Electrical Perfirmance Test .................................................................. 22
3.3 Related LCI data collection ............................................................................. 22 3.4 Summary ........................................................................................................... 23
Chapter 4 Quantitative Environmental Evaluation ................................. 25 4.1 Study Scope ...................................................................................................... 25 4.2 LCI Computation ............................................................................................. 26 4.3 Results presentation ........................................................................................... 28
4.3.1 Results of Inkjet Printing Technology ................................................. 29
4.3.2 Results of conventional ECG cables ................................................ 30
4.4 Comparison Analysis and Assessment ............................................................ 30 4.5 Sensitivity Analysis ............................................................................................ 31 4.6 Summary .............................................................................................................. 31
Chapter 5 Conclusion and Future Work ................................................. 33 5.1 Thesis Summary .................................................................................................. 33 5.2 Future Work ........................................................................................................ 33
Bibliography ........................................................................................... 35
ix
List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Global Printed Electronics Market Size and Forecast .................................................................... 2 Figure 1.2 Paper based Printed Flexible Cable (a) and its Cross Section (b) ................................................. 3 Figure 2. 1 Illustration of Life Cycle Assessment through Products’ Life Cycle Stages .............................. 8 Figure 2.2 Illustration of the phases of an LCA (ISO, 1997) ............................................................................ 9 Figure 3.1 Complementariness of printing technology and conventional electronics Courtesy: Institute of Print and Media Technology, Chemnitz University of Technology. ....................................................... 17 Figure 3.2 Application for ECG monitoring (a) and its illustration (b). ...................................................... 18 Figure 3.3 (a) DMP 2800 Printer. (b) Dropping Ink from nozzles. (c) Printed drops and metal trace on Substrate. .............................................................................................................................................................. 19 Figure 3. 4 Printed Samples for Active and Passive Shielding Test ............................................................. 20 Figure 3. 5 System boundary of paper based flexible cable .......................................................................... 21 Figure 4.1 (a) Printed Flexible Cable on Testing Board (b) Traditional ECG Cable on Humanbody ...... 25 Figure 4.2 Procedural Flow Diagram for Life Cycle Analyzing ................................................................... 26 Figure 4.3 Plan for Printed ECG Cables ........................................................................................................... 27 Figure 4.4 Plan for traditional ECG cable ........................................................................................................ 28 Figure 4.5 Total emission of printed flexible cable ......................................................................................... 28 Figure 4.6 Emission to air from Printed ECG cable ........................................................................................ 29 Figure 4.7 Total Emission of Traditional ECG cable ...................................................................................... 30
x
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Commonly used life cycle impact categories (SAIC 2006) ............................................................ 10 Table 3.1 Comparison of common printing techniques [13] ......................................................................... 18 Table 3.2 Induced voltage on victim line when transmitting a 20V pulse voltage with rise edge of 40 nanoseconds on the aggressive line .................................................................................................................. 20 Table 4.1 Process Interpretation of Printed ECG ............................................................................................ 27 Table 4.2 Process Interpretation for Traditional ECG .................................................................................... 27
xi
List of Publications Papers included in the thesis:
i. Qiansu Wan, Rajeev Kumar Kanth, Geng Yang, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, "Environmental Impacts Analysis for Inkjet Printed Paper-based Bio-patch", in Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science and Technology , 2015, Page(s): 837-847
ii. Rajeev Kumar Kanth; Qiansu Wan, Pasi Liljeberg, Aulis Tuominen, Lirong Zheng, Hannu Tenhunen, "Investigation and Evaluation of Life Cycle Assessment of Printed Electronics and its Environmental Impacts Analysis". in Proceedings of NEXT 2010 Conference, Page(s), 52 – 67
iii. Qiansu Wan, Geng Yang, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, “Electrical performance of inkjet printed flexible cable for ECG monitoring”, in Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS), 2011 IEEE 20th Conference on EPEPS, San Jose, USA, Page(s), 231 – 234
iv. Geng Yang, Q. Wan, L.- R. Zheng, “Bio-Chip ASIC and Printed Flexible Cable on Paper
Substrate for Wearable Healthcare Applications,” in the 4th International Symposium on Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies (ISABEL 2011), Spain, 2011. Page(s), 76 – 80
v. Qiansu Wan, Zhuo Zou, Lirong Zheng, “Life Cycle Assessment of Paper Based Printed
Interconnections for ECG Monitoring”, in European Journal of Engineering Research and Science Vol. 2, 2017, Page(s), 65 - 70
Papers not included in the thesis:
i. Rajeev Kumar Kanth, Qiansu Wan, Harish Kumar, Pasi Liljeberg, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, Hannu Tenhunen " Evaluating Sustainability, Environment Assessment and Toxic Emissions in Life Cycle Stages of Printed Antenna", in Journal Publications for Elsevier Procedia Engineering and Science Direct, 2011, Page(s), 1-7
ii. Rajeev Kumar Kanth, Qiansu Wan, Waqar Ahmad, Harish Kumar, Pasi Liljeberg, Li
Rong Zheng, Hannu Tenhunen, "Insight into the Requirements of Self-aware, Adaptive and Reliable Embedded Sub-systems of Satellite Spacecraft", in Conference Proceedings of International Conference on Pervasive and Embedded Computing and Communication Systems, 1, Science and Technology Publications Lda(SCiTePress), 2012. Page(s), 603 - 608
xii
List of Acronyms
CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate DMP Dimatix Materials Printer ECG Electrocardiogram ECOLCA Ecologically based LCA EDCW European Data Center on Waste EPD Environmental Product Declarations EIOLCA Economic input–output LCA ICT Information and Communication Technology ISO International Organization for Standardization LCA Life Cycle Assessment LCI Life Cycle Inventory LCIA Life Cycle Improvement Assessment NPS-JL Nano-Particle Silver Jetable Low-temperature ink PAH Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons PCB Printed Circuit Board PE Printed Electronics PWR Power R2R Roll-to-Roll REF Reference SAIC Scientific Applications International Corporation SCL Serial Clock SDA Serial Data WEEE Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
1
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Motivation
With impending climate change and increasing environmental degradation,
environmental and sustainability-related issues are gaining considerable
attention all over the world, of which both energy consumption and
environmental emissions are the core focus. In the meanwhile, an unignored
truth is that ICT industry has already consumed 4.7% of the total produced
electricity worldwide [1], also the European Data Center on Waste (EDCW)
points out that waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are currently
considered to be one of the fastest growing waste streams in the EU, growing at
3-5 % per year [2]. It is extremely important to look into the environmental issues
related to electronic system production comprehensively. On the other hand,
novel printed electronics technology based on additive processes are now
considered as the most environmental friendly method of electronic device
manufacturing. According to the Global Printed Electronics Market Report,
market forecasts of printed electronics is predicted to reach $19 billion by 2024;
growing at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 22.6% from 2016 to
2024 [3], as shown in Fig. 1.1 [3]. Therefore, there is a strong need to further
enhance its environmental performance to make it more in line with the “Green
ICT” definition.
Since over 80% of all product-related environmental impact can be influenced
during the early design phase [4], as potentially the best and most commonly
used environment analysis tool [5], Life Cycle Assessment [6, 7, 8] should be
conducted on environment impact evaluation and improvement assessment of
2
printed electronics.
Figure 1.1 Global Printed Electronics Market Size and Forecast
In order to implement life cycle assessment for printed electronics, a paper based
inkjet printed flexible cable for ECG monitoring is chosen as the research target
due to the following advantages:
Heart desease is now the most common cause of death among aging
people in the EU. Thus there is a strong need for the wearable
medical/healthcare devices for ECG monitoring such as printed flexible
cable.
Comparing to trantional ECG cables, inkjet printed ECG cable is not only
disposable, flexible, easy to use and comfortable to patients, but also can
solve problems like structure failure, cable tangling and so on.
As a typical printed electronics, printed flexible cable is potentially more
environmental friendly.
1.2 Thesis Aim and Objectives
The main aim of this licentiate thesis is to explore the LCA of paper based inkjet
printed electronics for a full range of environmental effect quantification and
focus on its comparison to traditional electric system production. However, it has
been realized that there is no solid structural implementation of LCA of flexible
electronics existing yet, nor its related environmental data as well. The challenge
here is to identify the limitations of printed electronics to fulfill the
3
environmental requirements. In this case, the main objectives of this thesis are:
To propose and print a paper based inkjet printed flexible cable for
wearable ECG monitoring system not only for feasibility testing, but also
for investigation into printed electronic for LCI modelling and data
collection. Fig 1.2 shows the flexible cable and its cross section.
To map and increase understanding of LCA methodology.
To conduct LCA for both inkjet printed flexible and traditional ECG
cable for parallel comparison.
To assess printed electronics design strategies from a life cycle
perspective.
To establish improved assessment to enable “Green” design for printed
electronics and inkjet printing technology.
Figure 1.2 Paper based Printed Flexible Cable (a) and its Cross Section (b)
1.3 Contributions and Thesis Organization
This thesis is organized in four chapters as follows:
(a)
(b)25 ㎛
Silver trace
4
Chapter 2
Detailed LCA theory is briefly introduced in this chapter. For the aspect of LCA
application of a new technology, variants of LCA technologies are described.
Related environmental issues with printed electronics are also discussed.
Contributions:
The literature survey regarding LCA is carried out. LCI modelling
and evaluation have also been established in a related LCA
project.
Included papers:
Qiansu Wan, Rajeev Kumar Kanth, Geng Yang, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, "Environmental Impacts Analysis for Inkjet Printed Paper-based Bio-patch", in Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science and Technology , 2015, Page(s): 837-847 Rajeev Kumar Kanth; Qiansu Wan, Pasi Liljeberg, Aulis Tuominen, Lirong Zheng, Hannu Tenhunen, "Investigation and Evaluation of Life Cycle Assessment of Printed Electronics and its Environmental Impacts Analysis". Proceedings of NEXT 2010 Conference, Page(s) 52 – 67
Chapter 3 In chapter 3, the present trends of printed electronics and inkjet printing are
introduced and an overview of the fabrication process on paper based inkjet
printed cable for wearable ECG monitoring system is given. Feasibility test for
paper based ECG cable has been described with both active and passive shielding
methods. The results show that ECG signal transimission is available on paper
based inkjet printed ECG cables.
Contributions:
First, different kinds of printed samples were designed with EDA
tools and fabricated from printing phase to sintering phase.
Second, feasibility test related experiment design and operations
were accomplished, as well as LCI data collection at the same
time.
Included papers:
5
Qiansu Wan, Geng Yang, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, “Electrical
performance of inkjet printed flexible cable for ECG monitoring”,
Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS),
2011 IEEE 20th Conference on EPEPS, San Jose, USA, Page(s): 231 –
234
Geng Yang, Q. Wan, L.- R. Zheng, “Bio-Chip ASIC and Printed
Flexible Cable on Paper Substrate for Wearable Healthcare
Applications,” in the 4th International Symposium on Applied
Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies (ISABEL
2011), Spain, 2011. Page(s), 76 – 80
Chapter 4 Chapter 4 investigated the life cycle assessment and environmental impacts of
paper based printed flexible ECG cable with a parallel comparison to traditional
ECG cables. The results show that printed flexible ECG cable causes much less
harmful and hazardous impacts to the environment. After the inventory data
analysis we reached the conclusion that inkjet printed electronics are more
environmental friendly.
Contributions:
A general operational framework for the LCA implementation of
printed electronics is developed. The case study is focused on
parallel comparison with different technologies that target some
applications.
Included papers:
Qiansu Wan, Zhuo Zou, Lirong Zheng, “Life Cycle Assessment of
Paper Based Printed Interconnections for ECG Monitoring”, in
European Journal of Engineering Research and Science Vol. 2, 2017,
Page(s): 65 - 70
Chapter 5 This chapter concludes the thesis and discusses further work.
7
Chapter 2 Life Cycle Assessment
2.1 Environmental Life Cycle Assessment
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14040-series [33] defines
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as “a systematic set of procedures for compiling and
examining the inputs and outputs of materials and energy and the associated
environmental impacts directly attributable to the functioning of a product or
service system throughout its life cycle” (ISO 14040) [34, 35, 36]. Fig. 2.1 shows the
full life cycle assessment system boundaries and all four life cycle stages of a
target product. Through the identification and quantification of energy and
substance use, as well as the release of waste into the environment [37], the LCA
evaluation is an attempt to determine all the resulting environmental impacts, and
provides an opportunity to assess and improve the targeted product design for
sustainability.
A full life cycle assessment includes the following four components as shown in
Fig. 2.2:
Goal and scope definition
Inventory analysis
Impact assessment
Interpretation (also known as Improvement assessment)
8
Figure 2. 1 Illustration of Life Cycle Assessment through Products’ Life Cycle
Stages
2.1.1 Goal and scope definition:
Goal and scope definition are the first steps in defining the rational for conducting
the LCA and its general intent [38], as well as specifying the product systems and
data categories to be studied (ISO 10140 [33]). Before an LCA is begun, the
purpose for the activity must be defined to determine the system boundaries.
Typically LCA studies are performed in response to specific questions, of which
the nature determines the goal and scope of the study [39]. In this research, due to
the complexity of electronics system productions involving infinite numbers of
categories for different materials and manufacturing processes, printed electronic
technology is compared with traditional PCB technology, which acts as a
reference and parallel for the initial investigation.
2.1.2 Inventory analysis
Life Cycle Inventory Analysis [40, 41] is an objective, data-based process for
quantifying energy and raw material requirements, air emissions, waterborne
effluents, solid waste, and other environmental releases throughout the life cycle
of a product (ISO 14141). As the second procedure of LCA system, inventory
analysis is the most important and time consuming phase. That is, LCI input and
Raw materials acquisition
Manufacturing
Use / Re-use /
Maintenance
Recycle / Waste
management
System boundary
Inputs
Water effluens
Airborn emissions
Solid waste
Other enviromental releases
Usable products
Outputs
Energy
Raw
materials
9
output data are fundamental to all LCA algorithms, analysis and assessments, of
which the data collection process is always too tedious [42] because of the lack of
consistent standards (i.e. different environment related legislations and policies in
different countries) and sources (i.e. different data value for a certain
material/process from different organizations such as industry, academic area or
government).
Figure 2.2 Illustration of the phases of an LCA (ISO, 1997)
2.1.3 Impact assessment
The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is a technical, quantitative or semi-
quantitative process to characterize and assess the effects of the environmental
loadings identified in the inventory component [43]. The assessment should
address both ecological and human health considerations, as well as other effects
such as habitat modification or noise pollution (ISO 14142 [33]). LCIA provides
information for interpretation by following steps (SAIC 2006 [44]):
Select the impact categories (as show in Table 2.1) to include indicators
and models
Classification due to assignment of LCIA results
Characterization based on category indicator results
Data quality analysis
Normalization (optional)
Grouping (optional)
Weighting (optional)
10
Table 2.1 Commonly used life cycle impact categories (SAIC 2006)
Impact Category
Scale Examples of LCI Data (i.e. classification)
Common Possible Characterization
Factor
Description of Characterization
Factor
Global Warming
Global Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
Methane (CH4)
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Methyl Bromide (CH3Br)
Global Warming Potential
Converts LCI data to carbon dioxide (CO2)
equivalents.
Stratospheric Ozone Depletion
Global Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs)
Halons
Methyl Bromide (CH3Br)
Ozone Depleting Potential
Converts LCI data to trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) equivalents.
Acidification Regional Local
Sulfur Oxides (SOx) Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) Hydrochloric Acid (HCL)
Hydrofluoric Acid (HF)
Ammonia (NH4)
Acidification Potential
Converts LCI data to hydrogen (H+) ion equivalents.
Eutrophication Local Phosphate (PO4)
Nitrogen Oxide (NO) Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)
Ammonia (NH4)
Eutrophication Potential
Converts LCI data to phosphate (PO4)
equivalents.
Photochemical Smog
Local Non-methane hydrocarbon (NMHC)
Photochemical Oxidant Creation
Potential
Converts LCI data to ethane (C2H6)
equivalents.
Terrestrial Toxicity
Local Toxic chemicals with a reported lethal concentration to rodents
LC50 Converts LC50 data to equivalents; uses multi-
media modeling,
exposure pathways.
Aquatic Toxicity
Local Toxic chemicals with a reported lethal concentration to fish
LC50 Converts LC50 data to
equivalents; uses multi-
media modeling,
exposure pathways.
Human Health Global Regional Local
Total releases to air, water, and soil.
LC50 Converts LC50 data to
equivalents; uses multi-
Media modeling,
exposure pathways.
Resource Depletion
Global Regional Local
Quantity of minerals used Quantity of fossil fuels used
Resource Depletion Potential
Converts LCI data to a ratio of quantity of resource used versus quantity of resource left
in reserve.
Land Use Global
Regional
Local
Quantity disposed of in a landfill or other land modifications
Land Availability Converts mass of solid
waste into volume using
an estimated density.
Water Use Regional Local
Water used or consumed Water Shortage Potential
Converts LCI data to a ratio of quantity of water used versus quantity of resource left in reserve.
11
2.1.4 Improvement Assessment
Life Cycle Improvement assessment is a systematic evaluation of the needs and
opportunities to reduce the environmental burden associated with energy and
raw materials use and environmental release throughout the whole life cycle of
the product, process or activity [45]. This assessment should include both
quantitative and qualitative measures of improvements (ISO 14143) [33].
2.2 Variants of Life Cycle Assessment
Since the first LCA was established in the USA in the 1970’s, more than 40 years
ago, there are now several commonly used LCA methods variants which are
briefly discussed below:
Cradle to grave Cradle-to-grave is the full Life Cycle Assessment from manufacture ('cradle') to
use phase and End-of-life phase ('grave') [46], and sometimes considered as the
same as whole-life cost. That is, all the environmental inputs and outputs through
product’s different life stages are included to explore product’s environmental
performance. Thus it is always not possible to bring gradle to grave LCA into
complex system productions due to its property on time consuming process and
heavy LCI data demands.
Cradle to gate Cradle-to-gate is an assessment of a partial product life cycle from manufacture
('cradle') to the factory gate (i.e., before it is transported to the consumer) [47].
Cradle-to-gate assessments are sometimes the basis for environmental product
declarations (EPD) (ISO 14025). In this sense, gradele to gate LCA is commonly
chosen for novel technologies which are not ready for mass production stage.
Here in this thesis work, a gradle to gate LCA has been carried out for inkjet
printing technology in comparison with tranditional PCB technology.
Cradle to cradle Cradle-to-cradle [48] is a specific kind of cradle-to-grave assessment, where the
consideration on end-of-life phase of the product is only gaining to the recycling
process. The main method of cradle to cradle life cycle assessment is to determine
the reuse portentiality and materials recycling ability of a product or activity for
waste management.
12
Gate-to-gate Gate-to-gate is a partial LCA focusing on one value-added process in the entire
production chain [49]. In other words, gate-to-gate life cycle assessment usually
determines the environmental impacts/emissions of a single step/process in one
of the production’s life cycle stage. Therefore it is possible to form a full LCA
evaluation by compiling the results of Gate-to-Gate modules from different
processes and life cycle stages.
Well-to-wheel Well-to-wheel is the specific LCA used for examining the efficiency of fuels used
for road transportation phase in raw material preparation [50]. The analysis is
often broken down into stages such as "well-to-station" and "station-to-wheel, or
"well-to-tank" and "tank-to-wheel", and mostly used to assess the energy
comsumption and emissions impacts throughout these stages [51] [52]. Hence
well-to-wheel life cycle assessment is normally used in the area of transportation
industry and logistics companies for efficiency use of fuels.
Economic input–output life cycle assessmen Economic input–output LCA (EIOLCA) involves use of aggregate sector-level
data on determining how much environmental impact can be attributed to each
sector of the economy, and how much each sector purchases from other sectors
[53]. EIOLCA evaluation is based on the resource use and emissions released
through out different products or industries within long supply chains. For
instance, to assess an PCB based product, the effort should not only focus on the
impacts at its own assembly process, but also impacts from the raw material
extraction, power generation and component manufacturing, etc. Thus EIOLCA is
commonly used on national strategy level, and not suitable for environmental
impacts evaluation of a certain product.
Ecologically based LCA Ecologically based LCA [54] was developed by Ohio State University Center for
resilience. Eco-LCA is a methodology that quantitatively takes into account
regulating and supporting services during the life cycle of economic goods and
products [55]. Comparing to conventional LCA, Eco-LCA is mainly focused on
accounting methods of the biophysical/ecological resources use, which would
indicate the role of resources in different life cycles.
2.3 LCA Software and Database
Environmental evaluation for life cycle analysis is heavily depended on LCI
database for involving processes or activities throughout product’s life cycle
stages. Hence it is sometimes too difficult to perform a full LCA which is data
13
intensive. To deal with the infinite amount of data from both input and output
within the targeted system boundaries, computers and LCA softwares are used
for data compilation, LCI modeling and results presentation. In this thesis work,
GaBi database combined with openLCA, ecoinvent, and U.S. LCI are included
because according to the market survey, GaBi from PE international is now taking
the lead in close proximity to 60% market share and portentialy considered as the
best product sustainability solution for life cycle assessment. GaBi [32] software
mainly helps user within the following aspects:
LCA design for environment
Eco-efficiency and Eco-design
Efficient value chains
designing and optimizing products and processes for cost reduction
Greenhouse gas accounting
Energy efficiency learning
Environmental risk management
2.4 Critical issues with LCA The European Commission concluded that Life Cycle Assessments provides the
best framework for assessing the potential environmental impact of products
currently available, in its Communication on Integrated Product Policy (COM
2003-302) [56]. Even though LCA is still far from accomplishment for environment
impact evaluation and assessment. There are some limitations and drawbacks to
LCA that should be addressed and understood, which include:
LCI Data limitation: not enough and proper data to cover the need for all
materials and processes.
Uncertainties: LCA based on the compilation of a large number of
parameters and scenarios, which are associated with assumptions and
uncertainties.
Time consuming: too many methodologies and process involved for a
full LCA.
Reliability: results heavily depend on the practitioners’ knowledge or
skill on LCA.
2.5 LCA Related Issues with Printed Electronics In comparison with traditional circuit manufacturing process, the foreground of
14
printed electronics is strong. Inkjet printing technology acts as an additive process
to deposit the functional conductive materials regarding to the designed pattern,
which allows the use of low-cost flexible substrate materials such as polymers and
even paper [57]. On the other hand, traditional PCBs in manufacturing phase have
to involve with wet chemical etching progress. Therefore, the general
environmental aspects for printed electronics are briefly discussed as below:
• Toxic emission
Compared with traditional electronic productions, a big advantage in printable
electronics is the minimal usage of toxic chemicals involved [58]. With the
avoidance of chemical acid usage for etching process in traditional electronics
fabrication process, printed electronics provide environmental friendly potential
for electronics devices manufacturing.
•Efficient use of materials
One of the main environmental advantages of printed electronics is the efficient
use of raw materials in the manufacturing phase [59]. The less materials in use, the
less wastes would exist, as well as less energy would be consumed, which leads to
more “Green” electronic device design and fabrications.
• Energy consumption
Since inkjet printing technology prints the conductive ink directly on the
substrate, printed electronics consume significantly less energy than traditional
electrical productions, which cost a huge amount of energy in manufacturing
phase due to involving with wet chemical progress for etching. However, printed
electronics require additional sintering process after printing phase, which would
cost extra energy in manufacturing phase.
• Life cycle length One of the problems with printed electronics compared to conventional PCBs is
the short operating lifespan [60]. Most Printed electronics’ life cycle length is no
longer than several thousand hours, but traditional PCBs usually could be used at
least three years and even more than that in some case.
•Improvement of Recyclability
The problem in recycling process for printed electronics is that products usually
contain toxic substances which are hard to identify and decompose, leading to
harmful waste [61]. Compared with traditional PCBs, the recyclability of printed
electronics has a stronger foreground because it is possible to decrease the variety
of materials [58] would be used for production. Moreover, in end-of-life phase
after ink recycling, incineration is considered as an efficient solution to minimize
15
potential environmental impact for printed electronics.
2.6 Summary
In this chapter, the basic architecture of LCA theory was briefly introduced. For
the aspect of LCA assessment of a new technology, the detailed procedure to
calculate LCA is described. According to the published literature, there are
several limitations and drawbacks of LCA. LCA issues related to printed electrics
were also considered.
17
Chapter 3 Printed Electronics
3.1 Background
Printed electronics (PE) is a term that defines the printing of circuits on media
such as paper and textiles, but also on a large number of potential media [9].
Figure 3.1 Complementariness of printing technology and conventional electronics Courtesy: Institute of Print and Media Technology, Chemnitz
18
University of Technology. The recent rapid development of PE technology is motivated by the promise of
low-cost, high volume, high-throughput production of electronic components or
devices which are lightweight and small, thin and flexible, inexpensive and
disposable [10]. Compared to conventional silicon-based electronics [11], the
unique nature of additive manufacturing process and selectable range of flexible
substrates makes PE not only a substitute or competitor but also a lead with broad
prospects for massive new applications in low-cost macroelectronics [12], which is
visually shown in Fig. 3.1.
Table 3.1 Comparison of common printing techniques [13]
Printing Technique
Print Resolution [µm]
Print Speed [m/min]
Wet Film Thickness [µm]
Flexographic 30-70 50-500 0.5-8
Gravure 20-75 20-1000 0.1-5
Offset 20-50 15-1000 0.5-2
Screen 50-100 10-100 3-100
Inkjet printing 20-50 1-100 0.3-20
With the long term development of flexible PE since the 1960s, several existing
printing technologies such as flexographic, offset, gravure, screen, inkjet printing,
etc [14] [15] have been applied to electronic systems for high volume Roll-to-Roll
(R2R) fabrications. The comparison of these most common printing technologies
as shown in Table 2.1 [13] which also lists some key parameters of each
technology in terms of print resolution, print speed and wet film thickness. All
printing technologies have their advantages and disadvantages [16, 17] and there
is not a simple choice of printing technology existing for electronic systems.
Figure 3.2 Application for ECG monitoring (a) and its illustration (b).
Among all above printing technologies, inkjet printing provides the best quality of
print resolution but lacks fast printing ability. By depositing functional ink onto a
flexible substrate according to the patterned scale, inkjet printing is now
Bio-signal
sensor
Flexible cable
Ports for bio-signal electrodes
REF
SCK
SHD
SDA
VCC
(a) (b)
19
considered to be the most popular printing method [18, 19], which provides the
driving force for change in electronic systems from the design through the
manufacturing phases. Furthermore, as an additive non-contact process [20],
inkjet printing technology eliminates the waste of material, which is
environmental friendly and also provides great potential for Green ICT design.
3.2 Inkjet Printed Flexible Cable
3.2.1 Conception
The paper based flexible cable [21, 22, 23] is a new application for inkjet printing
technology that has been applied to a wearable electrocardiogram (ECG)
monitoring system. This flexible cable acts as the connection between bio-electric
sensors and a central medical device such as a computer or electrocardiogram
monitor [21], as shown in Fig 3.2 (a). The cable is composed of five metal traces
[24, 25, 26]: the first metal line configured to deliver serial data from the sensor to
the medical central device, the second metal trace configured to deliver a
therapeutic voltage from the medical central device to the sensor, the third metal
trace configured as a grounded shielding line, the fourth metal trace configured to
transfer a bio-signal from the sensor to the medical central device, and the fifth
metal trace configured to provide system power, and are named in terms of Ref,
Sck, Shd, Sda and Vcc, respectively, as shown in Fig 3.2 (b).
Figure 3.3 (a) DMP 2800 Printer. (b) Dropping Ink from nozzles. (c) Printed drops
and metal trace on Substrate.
3.2.2 Flexible Cable Printing and Feasibility Test
In order to make sure that high quality ECG signals transmission is possible in
(a) (b) (c)
20
this flexible cable, different types of samples were printed through a DMP-2800
printer (Fujifilm Dimatix materials printer as shown in Fig 3.3 a). The printing
process can be seen in Fig 3.3 (b) and (c) which show screen shots of ink dropping
from the printing nozzles onto the paper substrate in different time and shapes.
All samples were fabricated by printing Nano-Particle Silver Jetable Low-
temperature ink (NPS-JL) on to the photo paper substrate for feasibility tests.
Figure 3. 4 Printed Samples for Active and Passive Shielding Test
The most critical challenge for fabricating the proposed flexible cable concerns
both internal and external electromagnetic field interference between the parallel
printed metal traces, especially when the ECG signal has an amplitude in the
range of 1 to 5 mV and frequency contents from 0.5 Hz to 200 Hz [27], which is too
sensitive for transmission over the printed trace. Therefore, both active shielding
[28, 29] and passives shielding [30, 31] methods were tested with printed samples
as shown in Fig 3.4.
Table 3.2 Induced voltage on victim line when transmitting a 20V pulse voltage
with rise edge of 40 nanoseconds on the aggressive line
While increasing and decreasing the value of clearance/width of the shield line
for both active and passive shielding methods, the results listed in Table 3.2 show
Active Shielding Sample with 1 mm clearance
Active Shielding Sample with 2 mm clearance
Passive Shielding Sample with 0.5 mm width shielding line
Passive Shielding Sample with 1 mm width shielding line
Samples Spacing/ Width
Induced Voltage on Victim Line (Unit: mV)
Average (Unit:mV)
Active1 1 mm 165 178 230 210 220 270 212
Active2 2 mm 140 156 168 129 170 165 155
Passive1 0.5 mm 32 38 40 36 50 45 40
Passive2 1 mm 19 28 21 26 25 30 25
21
that with active shielding method the average induced voltage is reduced to 155
mV from 212 mV by increasing the clearance between the victim/ aggressive line.
With passive shielding method the average induced voltage is reduced to 25 mV
from 40 mV by increasing the width of inserted shielding line. Accordingly, with
the combination of both active and passive shielding methods, the induced
voltage rate [32] decreased by 88%, which is efficient for ECG signal transmission.
Figure 3. 5 System boundary of paper based flexible cable
Naturalresources
Energy
Conductive Ink Paper
Inkjet Printing Sintering
Paper based Flexible Cable
Waste DisposalRecycling of Ink
and Paper
Emissions
Raw Material
Fabrication Process
22
3.2.3 Electrical Perfirmance Test The electrical performance measurement of the fabricated paper based flexible
cable in frequency domain/ time domain reflection is performed with a wide
bandwidth oscilloscope and a vector network analyzer. The results show that the
purpose of ECG signal transmission with high quality on the flexible cable is
obtained.
Return Loss Measurement: The return loss is around 30 dB in ECG signal’s
working frequency range, which is ignorable for bio signal transmission. But with
high frequencies (up to 200-900 MHz), the interface reflection from impedance
matching would cause significant signal attenuation on transmitting line.
Signal Attenuation Measurement: When the flexible cable is connected with the
central ECG device, observed results from the oscilloscope show that the ECG
signal could be still received at far end while large signal attenuation ratio exists,
whereas the maximum bandwith of the signal is around 150 Hz.
Time-domain Reflectometer: The results from time domain reflectometer
measurement show that with 3.3 ns of signal transmitting time, the reflection is
observed in 572.1 ps behind. Thus multiple refections is avoid for ECG signal
transmission.
A more detailed description of the electrical performance of printed flexible cable
is presented in Paper III & IV.
3.3 Related LCI data collection
Throughout the proposed printed flexible cable fabrication from design to
feasibility test, the system boundary for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis is
established as shown in Fig 3.5. Related LCI data categories is briefly listed as
below:
the energy usage on printing process with the Dimatix printer
the energy usage on printing process with the computer connected to the printer
the energy usage of the sintering process with the oven at 100 ℃ for 1 hour
the raw conductive ink material used
23
the raw photo papers material used
3.4 Summary
In this chapter, the background of printed electronics and inkjet printing
technology was introduced. We have attempted to give an overview of the
fabrication process using paper based inkjet printed cable for a wearable ECG
monitoring system. The proposed flexible cable using both active and passive
shielding methods can significantly decrease mutual crosstalk which enables ECG
signal transmission. We have also explored the related issues with LCA
methodology regarding this flexible cable.
25
Chapter 4 Quantitative Environmental Evaluation: A Case study involving Printed Flexible Cable
4.1 Study Scope
Printed electronics nowadays are gaining considerable attention due to its
unique ability for “desktop manufacturing” of electronic devices and green ICT
design. LCA was chosen to qualify the environment performance of printed
electronics as it is the most commonly used systematic tool for environment
evaluation.
Figure 4.1 (a) Printed Flexible Cable on Testing Board (b) Traditional ECG Cable
on Humanbody
(a) (b)
26
In order to implement LCA for printed electronics research, a case study was
carried out for the fabricated printed flexible cable for ECG monitoring described
in chapter 3. The method used was to compare printed electronics with
conventional PCB technology. In this example, the study was based on the
comparison between the environmental impact of paper based printed flexible
cable and traditional ECG cable as shown in Fig 4.1.
Figure 4.2 Procedural Flow Diagram for Life Cycle Analyzing
4.2 LCI Computation
Since inkjet printing for printed electronics is a new technology with barely
reliable LCI data from research institutes or industry, the GaBi software was
chosen for LCI compilations in this work for both technologies. The compilation
process shown in Fig. 4.2. is based on the GaBi data base in combination with
collected LCI data described in chapter 3. In the procedural flow diagram, the LCI
computation is defined as:
LCA plan is the compilation of the input of all function unit of a target
within LCA system boundaries for life cycle modelling. Fig 4.3 shows the
LCI plan for inkjet printed flexible cables.
The flow is the connection between different processes with related LCI
data.
Process interpretation defines the input data value. The process
interpretation of an inkjet printed cable is shown in Table 4.1, which
indicates the input value of raw materials for 100,000 unit production.
LCA Plan
Instance
Supporting
Interpretation
Calculation Analysis
27
Supporting database is the combination of local database and
incorporated LCI data.
Process instance presents local process adjustments and settings need
when the plan is finalized.
Balance is the LCI data computation process leading to the final results.
Figure 4.3 Plan for Printed ECG Cables
Similarly, the plan and process interpretation for traditional ECG cable are both settled as shown in Fig 4.4 and Table 4.2, respectively.
Table 4.1 Process Interpretation of Printed ECG
Table 4.2 Process Interpretation for Traditional ECG
Flows Amount (kg) Units
Paper Substrates 750 100000
Conductive ink 180 100000
Flows Amount (kg) Units
PVC 1560 100000
Copper Wire
Plastic Parts
9250
1235
100000
100000
28
Figure 4.4 Plan for traditional ECG cable
4.3 Results presentation This section focuses on the results obtained for both printed flexible cable and
traditional ECG cable. The environmental impacts evaluation was carried out for
different life cycle stages, and the conventional ECG cables were used as an
important reference for comparison purposes.
Figure 4.5 Total emission of printed flexible cable
Copper Wire
PVC
Plastic
1560kg
1235kg
9250kg
Traditional
ECG
Cable
29
4.3.1 Results of Inkjet Printing Technology
For the production of 100000 inkjet printed flexible cables, Fig.4.5 shows the total
emissions from inkjet printed ECG interconnection in the manufacturing phase.
The dominant emission to the environment is to the air, which takes 98% of total
emissions. Most of the remaining 2% of the emissions is to fresh water. Sea water
receives the rest in microscale amounts which is less than 0.1% of total emissions.
From input resources, it is noticed that paper substrates consume most of the
renewable material resources which mainly consist of water and air. To the other
side, consumed nonrenewable resources normally contain metal ore as majority.
Figure 4.6 Emission to air from Printed ECG cable
As shown in Fig.4.6, the printed flexible ECG cable produces harmful emissions to
air mainly in the form of inorganic emissions, organic emissions, heavy metals to
air, particles to air and radioactive emissions to air. The inorganic emission
contains components such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and so
on.
30
4.3.2 Results of conventional ECG cables
This section describes the analysis of environmental emissions for the production
of 100000 conventional ECG Cables. For the production of 100000 normal ECG
Cables, Fig.4.7 clearly shows the total environmental emissions in the
manufacturing phase. The dominant emission to the environment is to the air. The
data shows that 75.5% of emissions are to the air and 24% to fresh water.
Figure 4.7 Total Emission of Traditional ECG cable
Conventional ECG cables produce a large amount of harmful emissions to air
mainly caused by inorganic emissions, organic emissions, heavy metals, and
particles. The inorganic emissions are mostly composed of components such as
ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide. The other emissions to the air consist
of materials such as heavy metals to air, group PAH to air and halogenated
organic emissions to air. There are other emissions to the air such as organic
emission, radioactive emission to air and particles to air. The amount of these
emissions is negligible compared to the inorganic emissions.
4.4 Comparison Analysis and Assessment According to the resuts from section 4.3, the total mass of emission from 100000
units of printed flexible cable is 7174 KG. At the mean while, the same amount of
traditional ECG cables cause 1869550 KG waste to the environmental, which is in
31
close proximity to 260 times more than paper based inkjet printed ECG cables. On
the other hand, to fabricate the same amount of each kind of ECG cables, inkjet
printing technology costs 930 kg raw materials and tranditional ECG cable
consumed 12045 kg raw materials in manufacturing phase. Thus we can conclude
that inkjet printing technology saves 92% resource usage and reduces 95%
emission to the environment. In addition, for both technologies, the major portion
of hazardous emission is inorganic waste gas released to the air in different
categories, and again inkjet printing technology releases ignorable amount of
waste gas in comparison to traditional ECG cables.
With the comparison analysis for both inkjet printing technology and traditional
ECG cables, the parallel gradle-to-gate life cycle assessment has been established.
The simplified life cycle assessment framework implemtation for paper based
printed circuits has been carried out. The case study from the fabrication of
printed flexible cable to the examination of LCA evaluation not only fulfills the
goal of insight into a novel technology for environmental impacts investigation,
but also leads to further research scope on more complex paper based inkjet
printing systems within full life cycle stages.
4.5 Sensitivity Analysis First of all, since it is already realized that there is no enough solid LCI data for
printed electronics, especially for the fuctional conductive ink. Secondly, some of
the LCI data are from secondary sources or outdated open resources. Eventhough
this situation does not change the overall conclusion of conducted research
because a reference technology (i.e traditional ECG cable here) was chosen for
parallel analysis in the same condition, and LCA analysis for novel technology
always comes with unavoidable uncertainties.
4.6 Summary
In this chapter, LCA for both printed ECG cable and traditional ECG cable were
established. The results show that printed ECG cable caused significantly less
harmful emissions to the environment and need much less raw materials for
fabrication compared to traditional ECG cables. In brief, technology wise printed
flexible cable is more environmental friendly. More detailed discussion and
comparisons are presented in Paper V.
33
Chapter 5 Conclusion and Future Work
5.1 Thesis Summary
This thesis has described the attempt to evaluate the feasibility of a paper based
inkjet printed flexible cable for a wearable ECG monitoring system. It has also
included a quantified investigation into the environment impact of the proposed
inkjet printed ECG cable in comparison with traditional cables. The first stage of
this work showed the feasibility test demonstrating that the printed ECG cable is
capable of transmitting ECG signals while resisting both internal and external
interferences. Following parallel LCA comparison results indicate a promising
future for printed electronics in the Green ICT system.
All through the inkjet printing process to the fabricated sample, as well as the
LCA theoretical study, we have explored a general framework for the LCA
implementation for printed electronics. The study carried showed that inkjet
printing technology is more environmental friendly.
5.2 Future Work The results presented so far suggest several directions for the further work. First,
for inkjet printing technology it is important to examine the environmental
performance of different raw materials such as ink and substrate. It is
indispensable to improve both the design phase of printed electronics and the
LCA framework itself. Second, the ability to recycle printed electronics is a
34
challenging topic due to the short lifespan of devices that are considered to be
disposable in contrast to traditional electronic devices that are normally required
to last for years.
35
Bibliography
[1] Erol Gelenbe, Yves Caseau, "THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND CARBON EMISSIONS," Ubiquity, vol. 2015, pp. 1-15, 2015.
[2] WASTE, ENVIRONMENTAL DATA CENTRE ON, "WASTE ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT (WEEE)," EUROSTAT, EU.
[3] Research, Variant Market, "Printed electronics Market," Variant Market Research, 2016.
[4] B. Murray, "Embedding environmental sustainability in product design," Product Sustanability Forum, 2013.
[5] V. Khannaa, B. R. Bakshi and L. J. Lee,, "Life Cycle Energy Analysis and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Carbon Nanofibers Production," in IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment, 2007.
[6] Raul, Perez Gallardo Jorge; Alaric, Montenon; Pascal, Maussion; Catherine, Azzaro-
Pantel; Astier,, Stephan, "Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of autonomous and classical heliostats for heliothermodynamic power plants for concentrated solar power," in International Conference on Renewable Energies and Vehicular Technology, 2012.
[7] Tu Jui-The, Hus Fu-Lin, "The eco-design strategy on product research and development from the life-cycle design," in IEEE International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, 1999.
[8] J. Maruschke, B. Rosemann, "Measuring environmental performance in the early phase of product design using life cycle assessment," in Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, 2005.
[9] Cheng, I-Chun; Wagner, Sigurd, Flexible Electronics: Materials and Applications, 2009.
[10] Vesa Kantola, Jakke Kulovesi, Lauri Lahti, Ranran Lin, Marina Zavodchikova, Eric Coatanéa, Printed Electronics, Now and Futures, 2009.
[11] Rajeev Kumar Kanth, Qiansu Wan, Pasi Liljeberg, Lirong Zheng, Hannu Tenhunen, "Insight into Quantitative Environmental Emission Analysis of Printed Circuit Board," in International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering, 2011.
[12] Y Feng, L Xie, Q Chen, LR Zheng, "Low-cost printed chipless RFID humidity sensor tag for intelligent packaging," IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 3201-3208, 15.
[13] Daniel Tobjörk, Ronald Österbacka, "Paper Electronics," Advanced Materials, vol. 23, no. 17, 2011.
[14] H. E. Katz, "Recent advances in semiconductor performance and printing," Chemistry of Materials, vol. 16, no. 23, pp. 4748-4756, 2004.
[15] de Gans, Duineveld, and U. S.Schubert,, "Inkjet printing of polymers: State of the art and future developments," Advanced Materials, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 203-213, 2004.
[16] Li Xie, Matti Mäntysalo, Ana López Cabezas, Yi Feng, Fredrik Jonsson, Li-RongZheng,
36
"Electrical performance and reliability evaluation of inkjet-printed Ag interconnections on paper substrates," Materials Letters, vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 68-72, 2012.
[17] Xie, G. Yang, Linlin Xu, F. Seoane, Q. Chen, and L.-R. Zheng, "Characterization of Dry Biopotential Electrodes," in IEEE 35st Annu. Int. Conf. of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2013.
[18] Ana Claudia Arias, J Devin MacKenzie, Iain McCulloch, Jonathan Rivnay, "Materials and applications for large area electronics," Chemical reviews, vol. 110, no. 1, pp. 3-24, 2010.
[19] Xu, JM, "Plastic electronics and future trends in microelectronics," Synthetic Metals, vol. 115, no. 1, pp. 1-3, 2010.
[20] L. Xie, "Heterogeneous Integration of Silicon and Printed Electronics for Intelligent Sensing Devices," Phd Thesis, KTH, 2012.
[21] Geng Yang, Jian Chen, Ying Cao, Hannu Tenhunen, Li-Rong Zheng, "A Novel Wearable ECG Monitoring System Based on Active-Cable and Intelligent Electrodes," in e-Health Networking, Applications and Service, HEALTHCOM, 2008.
[22] G. Yang, J. Mao, T. Hannu, L- R. Zheng,, "Design of a Self-organized Intelligent Electrode for Synchronous Measurement of Multiple Bio-signals in a Wearable Healthcare Monitoring System," in IEEE Proc of Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies, Roma, 2010.
[23] G. Yang, J. Chen, L. Xie, J. Mao, T. Hannu, and L.-R. Zheng, "A Hybrid Low Power Bio-Patch for Body Surface Potential Measurement," IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics(JBHI), vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 591-599, 2013.
[24] Yang, Li Xie, Zhibo Pang, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, "INTEGRATION OF Bio-Patch AND iMedBox FOR IN-HOME HEALTHCARE AND SERVICES," in IFMBE Medicinteknikdagarna (MTD 2013), Stockholm, 2013.
[25] Wan, G. Yang, Q. Chen, and L-R. Zheng, "Electrical Performance of Inkjet Printed Flexible Cable for ECG Monitoring," in IEEE 20th Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS 2011), 2011.
[26] Yang, Q. Wan, and L.- R. Zheng,, "Bio-Chip ASIC and Printed Flexible Cable on Paper Substrate for Wearable Healthcare Applications," in the 4th International Symposium on Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies (ISABEL 2011), 2011.
[27] Yang, J. Chen, F. Jonsson, T. Hannu, and L.- R. Zheng, "A Multi-Parameter Bio-Electric ASIC Sensor with Integrated 2-Wire Data Transmission Protocol for Wearable Healthcare System," in Design Automation & Test in Europe (DATE 2012), German, 2012.
[28] Sadowska, A. Vittal and M., "Crosstalk Reduction for VLSI," IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 290-298, 1997.
[29] J. Zhang, E. G. Friedman,, "Effects of Shield Insertion on Reducing Crosstalk Noise Between Coupled Interconnects," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, ISCAS, Vancouver, Canada, 2004.
[30] H. Kaul, D. Sylvester, and D. Blaauw,, "Active Shields: A New Approach to Shielding Global Wires," in Proceedings of the 12th ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI, GLSVLSI, New York, USA, 2002.
[31] Kose, s.; Salman, E.; Friedman, "Shieldithodologies in the Presence of Power/Ground Noise," p. 99, 2010.
[32] K. S. Nayak, B. Hu, B. A. Hargreaves, "Wideband SSFP: SSFP with imaging bandwidth greater than 1/TR," in 13th Scientific Meeting & Exhibition, Miami, 2005.
[33] 2. ISO 14040, "Environmental Management - Life-cycle Assessment - Principles and framework.," Geneva: International Organization for Standardization., 2006.
37
[34] Nagata, K.; Nohtomi, M.; Aizawa, M.; Asaoka, K.; Usami, C., "The development of the Environmental efficiency potential assessment method," in Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, 2001.
[35] Cobas, E.; Hendrickson, C.; Lave, L.; McMichael, F., "Economic input&output analysis to aid life cycle assessment of electronics products," in Electronics and Environment, 1995.
[36] Tahara, K.; Inaba, A, "Development of a life cycle inventory database for chemical products," in Enviromentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, 2001.
[37] Ryu, Jiyeon; Kim, Ik; Kwon, Eunsun; Hur, Tak, "Simplified life cycle assessment for eco-design," in Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, 2003.
[38] Miyamoto, S.; Harada, H.; Fujimoto, J., "Environmental impact assessment for various information technology systems and classification by their environmental aspects," in Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, 2001.
[39] M. A. Curran, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment, McGraw-Hill, 1996.
[40] Steinbach, V., Wellmer, F, "Review: Consumption and Use of Non-Renewable Mineral and Energy Raw Materials from an Economic Geology Point of View," Sustainability, vol. 2, no. 5, pp. 1408-1420, 2010.
[41] Finnveden, G., Hauschild, M.Z., Ekvall, T., Guinée, J., Heijungs, R., Hellweq, S., Koehler, A., Pennington, D. & Suh, S., "Recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment," Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 1-23, 2009.
[42] ANDRÆ, ANDERS S.G., "Environmental life-cycle assessment in microelectronics packaging," Phd Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology, 2005.
[43] J. Guinée, "Handbook on Life Cycle Assessment: Operational Guide to the ISO Standards," Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
[44] (SAIC), Scientific Applications International Corporation, "Life Cycle Assessment: Principles and Practice.," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Contract No. 68-C02-067, Work Assignment 3-15, Cincinnati, Ohio., 2006.
[45] Hunt RG, Boguski TK, Weitz K, Sharma A., "Case studies examining LCA streamlining techniques," Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36-42, 1998.
[46] "Infrastructure Asset Management Manual," Association of Local Government Engineers New Zealand, New Zealand, 1998.
[47] W. M. C. Michael W. Tait, "A comparative cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of three concrete mix designs," The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 21, no. 6, pp. 847-860, 2016.
[48] McDonough, William; Braungart, Michael, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, North Point Press, 2002.
[49] Jiménez-González, C.; Kim, S.; Overcash, M., "Methodology for developing gate-to-gate Life cycle inventory information," The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 5, pp. 153-159, 2000.
[50] Brinkman, Norman; Wang, Michael; Weber, Trudy; Darlington, Thomas, "Well-to-Wheels Analysis of Advanced Fuel/Vehicle Systems — A North American Study of Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Criteria Pollutant Emissions," Argonne National Laboratory, 2011.
[51] "Full Fuel Cycle Assessment: Well-To-Wheels Energy Inputs, Emissions, and Water Impacts," California Energy Commission, 2011.
[52] Brinkman, Norman; Eberle, Ulrich; Formanski, Volker; Grebe, Uwe-Dieter; Matthe, Roland, "Vehicle Electrification - Quo Vadis," in 33rd International Vienna Motor Symposium, Vienna, 2012.
38
[53] Chris T. Hendrickson, Lester B. Lave, H. Scott Matthews, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Goods and Services: An Input–Output Approach, Resources for the Future Press, Routledge, 2005.
[54] Baral, A., B. R. Bakshi, R. Smith, "Assessing Resource Intensity and Renewability of Cellulosic Ethanol Technologies using Eco-LCA," Environmental Science and Technology, 2012.
[55] Singh, S.; Bakshi, B. R., "Eco-LCA: A Tool for Quantifying the Role of Ecological Resources in LCA," in International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology, 2009.
[56] "Implementation of the Integrated Product Policy communication," European Commission, 2016.
[57] Kunnari E, Valkama J, Ma¨ntysalo M, Mansikkama¨ki P., "Environmental performance evaluation of printed electronics in parallel with prototype development," in Proceedings of IMAPS, San Jose, 2007.
[58] Esa Kunnari*, Jani Valkama, Marika Keskinen, Pauliina Mansikkama¨ ki, "Environmental evaluation of new technology: printed electronics case study," Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 17, pp. 791-799, 2009.
[59] Kim YH, Moon DG, Han JI., "Organic TFT array on a paper substrate.," Electron Device Letters, IEEE, vol. 25, no. 10, pp. 702-704, 2004.
[60] Rajeev Kumar Kanth, Pasi Liljeberg, Yasar Amin, Qiang Chen, Lirong Zheng, Hannu Tenhunen,, "Comparative End-of-Life Study of Polymer and Paper Based Radio Frequency Devices," International Journal of Environmental Protection, vol. 2, no. 8, pp. 23-27, 2012.
[61] Griese H, Stobbe L, Middendorf A, Reichl H., "Environmental compatibility of electronics - a key towards local and global sustainable development," in international IEEE conference on the Asian green electronics, 2004.