Wearable Applications enabled by electronic Systems on Paper

Project Information

WASP

Grant agreement ID: 825213

DOI

10.3030/825213

Project closed

EC signature date 20 November 2018

Start date 1 January 2019

End date 30 June 2022

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 3 362 122,50

EU contribution

€ 3 362 122,50

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DI PISA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WASP (Wearable Applications enabled by electronic Systems on Paper)

Reporting period: 2020-07-01 to 2022-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Electronics has witnessed impressive technological achievements, due to the development of new processes and materials with extraordinary electronic and mechanical properties, which in turns have enabled brand new applications in the field of wearable electronics, mobile healthcare, sport and well-being to Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The continuous and dramatic increase in demand for this type of pervasive and versatile electronics leads to further concerns regarding the increase of the energy required in the production chain and storage (embodied energy) and of sustainability of the new technologies, e.g. the treatment of waste parts at the end of the product life-cycle.
Organic (carbon based) technologies are expected to address energy and cost inefficiency issues of their inorganic counterpart. For this reason, huge effort is devoted to: (i) obtain abundant and low cost organic precursors; (ii) define economically feasible, high-throughput and environmentally friendly synthetic routes; (iii) realize biodegradable electronic devices.
From this perspective, the WASP project aims at bringing the much-needed step change in flexible and wearable electronics by developing a new industrially driven enabling printing technology for the definition of electronic devices and circuits on paper, a flexible and foldable substrate, which is low cost, disposable, biodegradable, easily obtainable in nature and compatible with high speed roll-to-roll processes. The proposed technology is based on an environmentally friendly process and addresses the needs for future circular economy, as well as that for cheap, flexible and lightweight, multi-functional electronics. At the end of the project, a demonstrator will be released, able to sense biometric parameters (i.e. humidity, pH, glucose levels) and to communicate to an external reader, developed on purpose within the WASP activity.
In detail, the WASP project has the following main goals:
- to demonstrate electronic functionalities and emerging electronic applications enabled by nanomaterials on paper;
- to demonstrate a sustainable technology for low-cost and flexible electronics;
- to demonstrate a wearable paper-based technology, including sensing and communication functionalities for health care applications.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work performed within the WASP project has been first focused on the fundamental activities of obtaining optimized inks for the realization
of printed devices on paper, as well as on the functionalization and planarization of paper in order to reduce its intrinsic roughness.
Efforts have been addressed towards the realization of systems able to deliver power to the electronic device, as for example solar cell fabricated on paper,
as well as supercapacitors. Strain, pH, humidity, and glucose sensors have been fabricated, measured and tested among different conditions.
The above mentioned devices are the building block of an integrated system able to sense biological information (e.g. pH and humidity) and to deliver them to a reader,
that in our case is represented by a simple cell phone, who reads and interprets the data through a purposely devised android application.
In particular, the efforts in the last period of the project have been directed toward the realization of a demonstrator based
on a hybrid technology (i.e. integrating a silicon RFID tag with sensors fabricated with the technology developed in WASP),
in order to realize a smart diaper able to log the level of humidity as well as detect when it is time to change the diaper.
The approach is really general, which can be easily extended to other types of sensors (based on resistive transduction of the information)
as the ones developed within WASP (i.e pH, strain, and glucose sensors).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

WASP aims at developing by the end of the project a new disruptive and sustainable paper-based platform for electronics, combining for the first time several functionalities as biosensing, signal conditioning, energy harvesting and RFID communication: this clearly
represent a huge progress with respect the current state-of-the-art.
The WASP project proposes an innovative and recyclable electronic paper-based system that will be applied for healthcare disposable materials like adult diapers and bandages.
The technology propesed in the project is definitively disruptive and can have huge impacts.
WASP technology can enable portable instrumentation for Point-of-Care Testing (POCT). Advantages are countless. With POCT, medical doctors can handle patient health, taking prompt decisions even remotely without the need of
specialized laboratories. This would also allow to decide if continuing or withdrawing a therapy and/or tailoring it on the patient needs.
Widespread, sensitive, frequent screening or testing is a necessity for such anticipatory healthcare, and bio-electronics systems are the most plausible technology for such tests.

Being fully recyclable, WASP project will contribute in reducing the environmental impact of electronics, while contributing to the “Zero waste programme for Europe”
European citizens produce WEEE (waste related to the Electrical and Electronic equipment) at the rate of 17 kg/year per person.
A significant growth up to 24 kg/year is expected by 2020, and the actual recovery rate along the recycling chain, even in the European Union,
is far below the European target because the complexity of the device composition, the toxicity of the recycling process and the relative scarce efficiency.

We want to stress that the technology investigated within WASP can unleash unprecedented opportunities in the whole electronics market, enabling a wide range of
applications. In addition to healthcare, WASP technology could be exploited for example in smart labelling, for a fast interrogation of products information (implementing the blockchain process), like those related to their production, the origin, the quality of the food (e.g. expired, rotten, etc.), the breaking of the chain of cold (for food), as well as anticounterfeating systems for banknotes or luxury goods (Figure 10). An assessment of the potentials of scaling up the process for high-volume, large area production will be investigated within the WASP activity.

WASP image