Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SPRICE (Sustainable PRImary PRInted Cells Eco-designed for intelligent packaging)
Reporting period: 2021-07-01 to 2023-06-30
With the transition towards digital societies and industry 4.0 technologies, the rise of energy hungry IoT sensing, actuating, and communicating modules have significantly increased the demand of primary consumer batteries in the near future. This raises an environmental concern regarding their resource intensive production and the generation of hazardous electrical and electronics equipment waste (WEEE) after the end of its operation lifetime. Therefore, it is necessary to find sustainable alternatives to replace these batteries. In this context, the objective of project SPRICE was to implement a circular economy approach in the way primary batteries are conceived by proposing an eco-design for sustainability based on the entire life cycle of the device such as material evaluation, manufacturing, utility and end of life. At the end of the project, a functional sustainable primary cell and cell components were developed and presented for intelligent packaging applications on cardboard box. The sustainable design aspects entailed selecting benign and abundant materials that are compliant with low-energy printed battery manufacturing and with the cardboard box established manufacturing and recycling infrastructure. The prototype was shown to power a display module as a demonstrator and served as a proof-of-concept development. The project delivered the anticipated results within the final period. However, there is still room for development for further improving the battery performance.
An ecodesigned battery concept was developed, utilizing bio-based hydrogels that enable a compact, cost efficient and low-energy intensive solution that would also match paper recycling and fabrication process integrable in the existing cardboard manufacturing (similar to graphics labeling). Recyclability of the battery with paper waste stream was evaluated following the ATICELCA methodology 501/19 (UNI 11743:2019). A life cycle assessment (LCA) was initiated to determine the sustainability of the approach. A functional prototype was fully developed and shown to power a display module as a proof-of-concept demonstrator. Final results of this work will be presented in international conferences and published in a scientific article. The novelty of the concept developed has warranted the intellectual property protection. Furthermore, few potential end users of the project results were identified to enable further co-development and create new market opportunities.
SPRICE has been a very novel engineering project involving multidisciplinary aspects of clean tech and social innovation beyond the current state-of-the-art for commercial primary battery technology. The project presented a revolutionary paradigm change in the way primary batteries are made and used. Instead of conventional off-the-shelf solutions that are a major source of electronic waste, SPRICE presented the eco-design of batteries for sustainability and demonstrated a planar organic battery developed for intelligent packaging application on cardboard boxes. This battery concept was never conceived before which confirms the novelty of the concept, the enhanced innovation capacity and warranted the intellectual property protection. The project presented innovative aspects in sustainable design along the entire established cardboard box value chain from manufacturing to end-of-life recyclability. The cell components materials were selected and manufactured from benign, non-toxic, and abundant materials with a low-energy manufacturing process, addressing various industrial, societal and environmental issues of current commercial primary batteries such as resources depletion and environmental footprint. The project has expanded the host institute technological capabilities and provided an opportunity to study and unleash new market segments. Overall, the project was well aligned with EU policies such as the electronic waste directive, the battery directive, the EU Green Deal and the EU Circular Economy Action Plan, which recommended designing sustainable products and phasing out single-use batteries for sustainable alternatives. Therefore, the novel concept has helped further expand the EU leadership and competitiveness in sustainable development areas and strengthen research and innovation capacity.