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Cell Phones made with wood – The discovery begins

 Friday, April 29, 2016

CNFpaperAccording to a Scientific American article, Americans dispose of approximately 130 million cell phones each year. Consumers upgrade their cellphones every 18 months, on average, and the waste created by these discarded phones produces heaps of environmentally toxic material. Researchers also said that minimum 80% of people get their new phones in four to six months that shows how many working phones are discarded daily in the country alone. The researches and pictures of discarded cell phones made them shocked. They think that any wireless material could be made with environmentally friendly material. From that time, they had started their researches on toxic waste, nanocellulose and wood fibers and headed towards a successful and safe future.

 

Researchers at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) recently collaborated with University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) engineers to develop an innovative device in hopes of decreasing the toxic waste created by mobile phones. A video recently produced by the UW explains how scientists worked to replace the support layer of a cell phone’s computer chip with  (CNF), a completely biodegradable material made from wood.

 

Dr. Zhiyong Cai, a research materials engineer at FPL, co-authored the study, and says his team was able to compress the nanocellulose, or wood fibers, into a thin film, resulting in a resilient, sturdy, safer material.

 

“My dream is one day people will pull out a cellphone, maybe 20 percent of the materials are made out of wood,” Cai said. “That’s going to be awesome. That’s my dream.” He concluded.
The majority of wireless devices contain gallium arsenide microwave chips and other substances that are highly toxic to the environment. According to Cai, the electronic industry is looking for greener, more sustainable alternatives to these chemicals. He and his research team hope the newly developed CNF chip can help.

 

Scientists say the newly developed film can perform as well as the original chips.

 

 

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