Silicon Austria Labs | From Innovation to Obsolescence: Tackling the End-of-Life Challenges of Printed Sensors
- khashayar Ghaffarzadeh
- 21 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Author: Johanna Zikulnig, Silicon Austria Labs
As the sensor market surges ahead, driven by megatrends like the Internet of Things (IoT), digital healthcare, and smart packaging, it's becoming increasingly urgent to consider not just how sensors are made, but also but also what happens to them at the end of their life cycle.
At Silicon Austria Labs (SAL), we are investigating a critical yet often neglected aspect of this growth from manufacturing until the end-of-life (EoL) of printed and hybrid sensors. Our research focuses on sustainability-driven design to address environmental implications.
Why Now? Three Key Drivers
1. Ubiquitous Sensing
The global sensor market is expanding rapidly, with an estimated annual growth of ~9% [1]. From automotive to digital health and industrial automation, sensors are being embedded everywhere to enable real-time monitoring and smart control. Driven by the rise of IoT-enabled environments, this trend will only accelerate.
2. Emergence of Single-Use Applications
Fields like point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics [2] and smart packaging [3] are seeing unprecedented growth. These applications often require low-cost, disposable sensors integrated directly into products or packaging. Printed electronics have emerged as a key enabling technology in this context, offering thin, flexible, and scalable solutions that meet performance and cost demands. While functionally effective, these single-use applications raise red flags for sustainability.
3. Electronic Waste is the Fastest-Growing Waste Stream
Electronics already represent the fastest-growing waste stream globally [4], yet printed sensors embedded in non-traditional products like packaging or textiles rarely end up in conventional e-waste streams. Instead, they are discarded alongside household or municipal waste, leading to a silent loss of valuable materials and a missed opportunity for resource recovery.
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What Happens When the Sensing Ends?
Printed sensors are typically composed of hybrid material systems, combining elements such as polymer substrates, functional inks, and often a semiconductor chip for wireless communication or data processing. Figure 1 presents examples of in-mold-electronic and PoC devices. As these technologies are increasingly deployed in everyday applications from packaging to diagnostics the question arises: What happens at the end of their short life?
Based on the European Union’s waste hierarchy [5], SAL has examined end-of-life (EoL) options for printed single-use sensors.
Landfilling: While biodegradable components, such as certain substrate materials, can break down over time, they may emit methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and CO₂, all of which contribute to climate change. However, non-degradable components such as metal electrodes and microchips are even more concerning, as they remain in the environment for generations.
Incineration (with Energy Recovery): While a small amount of energy can be recovered from the combustion of carbon-based components, non-combustible materials like silver and copper are too small to be extracted from bottom ash. These valuable and strategic metals are lost to landfilling or downcycling into construction materials, undermining circularity and resource conservation.
Recycling: In theory, recycling is the most desirable path, yet it is rarely feasible in practice. The mixture of materials, use of encapsulants, and embedded chips make it difficult to separate and recover components. Currently, no standardized recycling infrastructure exists for these small, integrated devices.
Bridging the Gap Between Innovation and Waste
In a recent study published in Scientific Reports [6], we used life cycle assessment (LCA) to analyze the environmental hotspots associated with printed sensors. Contrary to expectations, we found that substrates, which are often the largest component by weight, contribute relatively little to overall environmental impact. Instead, it is the functional materials, such as nanoparticle-based inks or embedded semiconductor chips, that dominate environmental burdens. This challenges the intuitive assumption that "bulk equals burden" and emphasizes the need for system-level evaluation in sustainable design.
Moreover, there is a blind spot that compounds the problem: printed sensors integrated into disposable products, such as packaging or textiles, do not typically enter the regulated e-waste stream. Instead, they are discarded as part of municipal waste, where they are neither recognized as electronics nor sorted for material recovery. This results in the loss of valuable functional materials – many of which are scarce, energy-intensive to produce, or considered strategic or critical by the EU [7] – and represents a missed opportunity to close resource loops.
But this challenge also reveals a unique strength of printed electronics: Unlike conventional electronics, printed and hybrid electronics offer the possibility to work with novel or unconventional materials. This opens the door to reducing dependency on critical raw materials – a strategic global priority. Emerging sensor designs increasingly feature bio-based polymers, carbon-rich inks, and functional materials sourced from renewable streams. These innovations don’t just reduce environmental impact, but they diversify material sources, potentially shielding the industry from future supply shocks or geopolitical risks.
Consequently, sustainability also presents a business opportunity: By designing systems around novel, secure, and recyclable material streams, companies can establish greater control over their supply chains and reduce exposure to material volatility. In the long term, such an approach could lead to industry-specific closed-loop ecosystems, where materials are deliberately selected not only for function but also for recoverability, safe degradation, or reintegration into new production cycles.
To realize this vision, however, end-of-life considerations must be part of the innovation process from the start. Without that, the full potential of printed electronics as an enabler of a sustainable, resource-resilient future will remain unexploited.
Rethinking Design: From Disposable to Responsible
As printed single-use sensors continue to gain traction, the industry has the opportunity – and responsibility – to integrate environmental considerations from the outset.
We need:
More transparency on materials and recyclability
Cross-sector collaboration to define end-of-life pathways
Continued development of eco-conscious sensor designs
At Silicon Austria Labs, we see sustainability not as a barrier but as an opportunity. The future of electronics is not just smart. It must be sustainable. Let’s build that future together. For collaboration opportunities or further information, visit www.silicon-austria-labs.com or connect with us on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/silicon-austria-labs/).
About Silicon Austria Labs (SAL)
Silicon Austria Labs GmbH (SAL) was founded in 2018 as a top non-university research center in the field of Electronics and Software Based Systems. At its locations in Graz, Villach and Linz, research is conducted on key technologies in the fields of Microsystems, Sensor Systems, Power Electronics, Intelligent Wireless Systems and Embedded Systems. SAL brings together key players from industry and science and thus valuable expertise and know-how, and conducts cooperative, application-oriented research along the value chain. The aim is to accelerate the value creation process from idea to innovation – with excellent research and economic benefits. Owners are the Republic (50.1%), the Provinces of Styria and Carinthia (10% each), the Province of Upper Austria (4.95%) and the Association for the Electric and Electronics Industry (24.95%).
References:
[4] Global E-Waste Monitor 2020 (UNITAR)
[6] Zikulnig, J., Carrara, S., & Kosel, J. (2025). A life cycle assessment approach to minimize environmental impact for sustainable printed sensors. Scientific Reports, 15(1), 10866.
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