Challenges of SMT assembling on biodegradable PCB substrates

With the increase of e-waste and the amount of produced commercial electronics, which can be considered as future electronic waste, the processing of this waste, and the question of possible alternative substrates raise alarming questions. Bio-based and biodegradable substrates emerge for substituting the conventional materials with environmentally friendly solutions. Our paper presents investigations into assembling with reflow soldering on printed circuit boards (PCBs) fabricated from bio-based and biodegradable substrates (PLA, CA), with the focus on surface mount technology (SMT) and the thermal load, which affects the substrates heavily. In the paper the solderability on such biodegradables is investigated from lead-free reflow temperatures, also from the aspect of reduced temperatures, with different heating factor values. It was found that the substrates are very susceptible to high thermal loads.