Mission possible for self-destructing electronic devices

The goal is to find ways to disintegrate devices so that manufacturers can recycle costly materials from used or obsolete electronics or so that devices can break down in landfill.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have also developed a radio-controlled trigger that could remotely activate self-destruction on demand.

The team, led by aerospace engineering professor Scott R White, published their work in Advanced Materials.

“We have demonstrated electronics that are there when you need them and gone when you don’t need them anymore,” White said in a statement.

“This is a way of creating sustainability in the materials that are used in modern-day electronics. This was our first attempt to use an environmental stimulus to trigger destruction.”

White’s group teamed up with John A Rogers, a Swanlund chair in materials science and engineering and director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Laboratory at Illinois.

Rogers’ group pioneered transient devices that dissolve in water, with applications for biomedical implants.