Functional Electronics,is a key enabler of European digital transformation. It supports many key enabling technology breakthroughs and will play a major role in the transition to a circular economy. The total market for printed, flexible, and organic electronics is expected to grow to $74 billion by 2030 (IDTechEx Research). However, these opportunities are threatened by the environmental impact of electronic devices.
Electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) is one of the fastest-growing waste streams, with 54 million metric tons generated worldwide in 2019. Only around 20–25% is formally recycled. Europe leads the world in e-waste generation per capita. If Europe is to lead in functional electronics, we must also prevent them from becoming a future e-waste problem.
REFORM addresses the sustainability challenges around conventional surface mounted and embedded functional electronics and aims to accelerate the development of a new European green functional electronics supply chain. It seeks to use ecodesign principles to ensure that functional electronics can meet multiple application requirements for technological performance and compliance, while also meeting societal and environmental needs for sustainability.
REFORM aims to develop environmentally benign electronic 'building blocks' focusing on green, bio-derived adhesives, conductive inks and flexible substrates. Among them REFORM sets out to create bio-based de-bondable adhesives to separate electronics components on demand for recycling, a suite of sustainable fully-organic conductive inks for use in printed flexible electronics and scalable production of flexible substrates from renewable sources that satisfy printability and performance for various applications. These will be integrated into industry-led functional electronics systems and supported by innovations in conformance testing and material recovery methods, helping meet the ambitions for the European Green Deal. The immediate outcome of REFORM will be three demonstrators: a green smart logistics tag, a green embedded wireless sensor and a microsupercapacitor, taking the project from TRL 2/3 to TRL 5.