Jack Herring | Jiva Materials Ltd: How can you recover high-value semiconductors from a PCB in just 30 minutes using only hot water?
07:36 - 08:41
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How can you recover high-value semiconductors from a PCB in just 30 minutes using only hot water?
The core innovation of Jiva's Soluboard is its unique end-of-life solution, which completely sidesteps the need for incineration or harsh chemical leaching. The entire printed circuit board assembly can be immersed in hot water, around 90°C, causing the substrate to fully dissolve in as little as 30 minutes. This process cleanly liberates all the mounted electronic components from the board, leaving them intact and ready for recovery.
This simple yet effective process enables a true circular economy for electronics, particularly for high-value components. The speaker highlights a successful collaboration with Infineon, where semiconductors valued at 30 to 40 euros each were recovered from a dissolved Soluboard. These recovered components were then validated and successfully repurposed, proving the economic viability of component reuse in certain applications.
Beyond component recovery, the process also addresses the substrate material itself. Once the components and copper foil are filtered out, the remaining slurry contains the natural fibers that form the basis of the board. It has been demonstrated that these organic fibers are fully biodegradable in a natural environment within just two and a half months, without requiring specialized industrial composting facilities.
In this short video, you can learn:
* The hot water-based recycling process for Soluboard PCBs.
* How high-value components can be recovered and reused, as validated by Infineon.
* The biodegradability of the reclaimed natural fiber substrate material.
📋 **Clip Abstract** This clip details the novel hot water recycling process for Soluboard, a fully biodegradable PCB substrate. It demonstrates the ability to rapidly dissolve the board to recover and reuse high-value electronic components, while the remaining natural fibers can be safely biodegraded.
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#Soluboard, #HotWaterRecycling, #ComponentRecovery, #BiodegradableSubstrate, #PrintedElectronics, #CircularElectronics
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09:33 - 10:50
Your PCB substrate is thermoplastic, not thermoset. How does this force a change in your flame retardant chemistry and assembly process?
Your PCB substrate is thermoplastic, not thermoset. How does this force a change in your flame retardant chemistry and assembly process?
A key differentiator for Soluboard is its thermoplastic nature, which contrasts sharply with the thermoset epoxy resins used in conventional FR-4. This fundamental material difference prevents the use of standard brominated flame retardants. Instead, Jiva Materials employs a more environmentally friendly phosphorus-based flame retardant system, which currently achieves a UL 94 V-1 rating with a clear development path towards the industry-standard V-0.
Electrically and thermally, Soluboard is positioned as a competitive alternative to incumbent materials. Its Comparative Tracking Index (CTI) is identical to both CEM-1 and FR-4, while its permittivity and thermal conductivity values sit directly between the two, making it a suitable drop-in for a wide range of applications. Furthermore, its significantly lower density (a full kilogram per cubic meter lighter than FR-4) contributes directly to a reduced carbon footprint.
The thermoplastic properties, however, impose a critical process limitation: soldering temperature. Soluboard is not compatible with the high thermal excursions of standard lead-free SAC reflow profiles, which can reach 270°C. Consequently, assembly must be performed using low-temperature solders (LTS). This is a crucial consideration for contract manufacturers, but it also introduces an added benefit of significant energy savings during the reflow process.
In this short video, you can learn:
* Why Soluboard uses phosphorus-based flame retardants instead of brominated ones.
* A direct comparison of electrical and thermal properties (CTI, permittivity, conductivity) against FR-4 and CEM-1.
* The critical requirement for using low-temperature solder due to the material's thermoplastic nature.
📋 **Clip Abstract** This segment provides a technical comparison of Soluboard's properties against industry standards like FR-4. It covers the unique phosphorus-based flame retardant chemistry, competitive electrical performance, and the crucial process constraint of requiring low-temperature solder for assembly.
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#ThermoplasticPCB, #PhosphorusFlameRetardant, #LowTemperatureSolder, #SustainableElectronics, #PrintedElectronics, #AdvancedPCBMaterials
06:14 - 06:43
How do you create reliable plated-through-holes on a PCB substrate that is designed to dissolve in water?
How do you create reliable plated-through-holes on a PCB substrate that is designed to dissolve in water?
A major technical milestone for Jiva Materials was achieving compatibility with two-sided plated-through-hole (PTH) manufacturing. This capability is fundamental for producing the vast majority of modern rigid PCBs, moving beyond simple single-layer boards to enable more complex, interconnected circuit designs. The speaker emphasizes that developing this for a water-soluble material was a significant and non-trivial engineering challenge.
The core difficulty lies in the fact that many standard PCB fabrication processes—particularly those involved in drilling, cleaning, desmearing, and plating vias—are aqueous and water-based. Exposing a material designed to dissolve in water to these standard chemical baths without it degrading or failing required a huge amount of dedicated research and process development. This is a classic example of the challenges faced when integrating novel, environmentally-sensitive materials into established, harsh industrial manufacturing lines.
Successfully developing a process to create robust PTHs demonstrates a deep understanding of both the material's chemistry and the intricacies of PCB manufacturing. This breakthrough is critical for market adoption, as it allows PCB fabricators to produce functional, multi-layered boards using Soluboard with modified, but compatible, processes. This achievement significantly broadens the material's applicability from simple circuits to more advanced electronics.
In this short video, you can learn:
* The critical milestone of achieving two-sided plated-through-hole (PTH) boards.
* The inherent technical challenge of using standard aqueous PCB fabrication processes on a water-soluble material.
* The significance of this development for enabling more complex, multi-layer circuit designs with Soluboard.
📋 **Clip Abstract** This clip highlights the significant R&D challenge of creating plated-through-holes (PTH) on a water-soluble PCB substrate. It explains why standard aqueous-based PCB fabrication processes are incompatible and how overcoming this hurdle was a critical step to enable more complex, multi-layer circuits.
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#PlatedThroughHoles, #WaterSolublePCB, #AqueousPCBProcessing, #Soluboard, #SustainableElectronics, #AdvancedPCBManufacturing