DissolvPCB enables fully recyclable 3D-printed circuit boards with liquid metal conductors
DissolvPCB enables fully recyclable 3D-printed circuit boards with liquid metal conductors
Very cool, though JFC there's no way MY printer will be fine tuned enough to generate the channels. The whole process reminds me of the rednecks who pour molten aluminum down fire ant hills, in a good way. The sealing with glorified Elmer's glue is also clever.
Now all that said, you wouldn't want to make anything that's going to have much contact with water, so a lot of typical applications are risky: "My PCB is leaking!" I do wonder if you could do the same thing, but less immediately recyclable, with PLA and a 3D pen.
Oh this is wonderful! I strongly recommend reading the preprint, really enjoyable: URL
This is not just one of those ivory tower papers with their actual applications far away in time and eventually ending up in some obscure industrial process never heard of again in lay circles; this could have an immediate impact on the maker culture and makerspaces right now and in the near future. The preprint describes the process in a very understandable, digestible manner and provides actual implementation examples, as well as detailed recipes for all of the compounds. If you are even remotely interested in the subject matter, I'd recommend you to try it out for yourself. The "ingredients" are all easily obtainable and handleable. Yes, gallium and indium might be a bit expensive, but it is worth it imo. They literally used consumer kitchen equipment for some of the steps, to demonstrate how this is feasible for tinkerers, makerspaces and prototypes. No expensive machinery required (except for an FFF 3d-printer, of course).
I skimmed through the paper, and I agree that it looks pretty damn digestible for the average tinkerer to understand and implement themselves if they so choose
But just kind of a quick summary for people who still won't read the article
You basically 3d print a circuit board out of P A (which is basically the same material as regular white elders school glue, so non toxic and water soluble) with hollow channels instead of circuit traces.
Then you fill those hollow tubes with the gallium/indium mix, which has a very low melting point, like "glass of warm water" low.
Insert any components you need and secure them into place with a drop of glue, and BOOM you've got a circuit board.
And when you're done, just dump it in a glass of water. The PVA dissolves and you can fish out the metal to reuse in a different project.
Like you said, the only "specialized" equipment you need is a 3d printer that can handle PVA filament.
Not necessarily something that's going to be useful for any industrial production applications, but this could be huge for hobbyists and even prototyping for businesses. Most traditional methods for making a PCB call for some kind of nasty chemicals and they're not really reusable, especially not for the home-gamer, this could make for a nice step-up for the people who don't want to deal with this and want something a little more polished than a breadboard or a mess of soldered wires
Direct metal liquid contact from pin to pin! I love it.
(Not to mention how satisfying it is to get a pile of undamaged ICs after recycling)
Ooooooooo
PVA probably really limits the applications but that's super cool