The growing demand for electronics, one of today’s most highly developed and pervasive technologies, imposes increasing pressure on critical chemical elements and brings about a dramatic accumulation of Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) including hazardous substances, generating considerable geopolitical, environmental, health, and societal concerns. As of 2019, the worldwide WEEE generation was 53.6 Mt and the fate of 82.6% of this amount (44.3 Mt) was estimated as uncertain. Further, electronic products feature high embodied energy (energy hidden in the inner constituents during manufacturing).

Sustainable organic electronics proposes the use of solution-processable organic materials extracted from natural sources or synthesized following the green chemistry principles for biodegradable devices. Solution-processable (printable) materials are expected to bring about low embodied-energy electronics since processing takes place at ambient conditions (i.e., no high vacuum or high temperature conditions are employed).

Eumelanin, the black-brown natural pigment member of the melanin family, has been investigated to explore the potential of sustainable organic electronics. Sepia melanin is a form of eumelanin that can be extracted from cuttlefish ink (Sepia officinalis). Sepia melanin is composed of nanometric granules (100–200 nm in diameter) that result from the hierarchical development of its building blocks (monomers), namely 5,6-dihydroxyindole (DHI) and 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid (DHICA). The electronic conjugation of DHI and DHICA, associated with intra- and intermolecular p-p interactions, opens the opportunity to observe electronic transport in eumelanin. 

In this seminar, we will discuss cradle-to-grave studies for Sepia eumelanin printed films for sustainable organic electronics. We will motivate the choice of the materials, explain film printing by flexography, analyze the results of the electrical characterization and, finally, report preliminary data on composting. Challenges and opportunities pertaining to the complex chemical composition of the biosynthesized materials and their chemical and physical disorder will be also discussed, since they affect technological and practical developments.

Clara Santato (PhD, Geneva U, 2001), Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Organic Electronics: Materials, Processes Devices, is Professor in the Department of Engineering Physics at Polytechnique Montreal. Dr Santato’s key achievements include: seminal work on WO₃-catalysed water photoelectrolysis for hydrogen (H₂) production; groundbreaking work on organic (carbon-based) electronics, specifically on Organic Thin Film Transistors; mixed electronic-ionic transport properties and biodegradability of the biopigment melanin. Clara is the PI of a Canada-wide Collaborative Research and Training Experience in Sustainable Electronics and Eco-Design (CREATE SEED, 2020-2026) initiative, funded by NSERC, bringing together some 20 universities and industrial partners in Canada and abroad.  Her activity in Sustainable Electronics and International Development brough her to establish a UNESCO Chair in Green and Sustainable Electronics at Polytechnique Montreal.