Novel PLA/Flax Based Biodegradable Printed Circuit Boards

In this paper we present a novel polylactic acid (PLA)-based printed circuit board (PCB) substrate with flax reinforcement to form a biodegradable alternative to classical PCB materials. The substrate is laminated with copper to be used as two-sided PCB with flame retardant addition. The substrate is both bio-based and biodegradable, compatible with the current and future mindset of green electronics and classical manufacturing approaches. The laminates are prepared with traditional subtractive technology. For assembly, surface mount technology (SMT) is used. The basic aspects of surface mounting (stencil printing, pick and place), a heat sensitive approach on soldering and the validation of the results with copper peeling and shear-force tests is presented in the paper. It was found that the strength of the joints is comparable with the ones soldered on traditional FR4-based PCBs, and that there are several peculiarities of the substrate, which affects the adhesion of the copper layer.