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Cellulose Electronics and Photonics: A New Challenge for Materials a New Opportunity for Devices

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Optical and Photonic Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2022) | Viewed by 7355

Special Issue Editors

AlmaScience CoLab, Campus da Caparica, 2829‐516 Caparica, Portugal
Interests: cellulosic materials for electronics and photonics; oxide nanostructures; fiber-based functional materials and devices; electrical and electrochemical devices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
Interests: cellulosic materials for sensors and actuators; soft robotics; electrochemical biosensors; antimicrobial sanitization and disinfection; wound healing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Concerns about sustainability have attracted great interest in renewable materials from nature as emerging solutions to a range of technological challenges. In particular, cellulose-based materials are not only biocompatible and earth-abundant, but also have nature-provided intrinsic structures for a potentially transformative impact on new recyclable electronic and photonic devices, like paper displays, smart labels, smart packaging, bio-and medical applications, point-of-care (PoC) devices, RFID tags, disposable sensors and actuators, and energy harvesting devices. 

To enable all these possible applications, some challenges in fundamental research and understanding must be surpassed, which include giving new functionalities to cellulose and structures with tailored properties, novel devices with both proper functionality and mechanical flexibility, cost effectiveness, scalable and reliable manufacturing techniques, and system-level integration. 

This Special Issue aims to gather the research community working with cellulose-based materials and covers recent developments in topics that include: micro/nano fibers functionalization and assembling, new cellulose-based substrates (nanocellulose, bacterial cellulose, etc.), nanocomposites with other functional materials (conductors, semiconductor, insulators, piezoelectric/triboelectric, ion-permeable), multi-functional devices and actuators, bio-mimetic/nature-inspired structures, and cost-effective manufacturing technologies on large area (printing and roll-to-roll processes). 

Hot topics to be covered in this Special Issue:

  • Cellulose and other related biomaterials such as lignin;
  • Nanocellulose-based functional structures and self/hierarchical assembly;
  • Mechanical/thermal/barrier properties and multi-scale modeling;
  • Micro/nanofluidics and biosensors on cellulose and related biomaterials;
  • Electronic devices such as flexible electronics;
  • Sensors and actuators;
  • Soft robotics;
  • Wearable and patch-based devices;
  • Plasmonics and nanophotonics;
  • Energy harverting applications such as solar cells, batteries, supercapacitors and piezo/triboelectrics;
  • Other emerging applications such as smart materials, membranes and others.

Prof. Dr. Luis Pereira
Prof. Dr. Aaron Mazzeo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cellulose
  • lignin
  • nanocellulose
  • micro/nanofluidics and biosensors
  • electronic devices
  • plasmonics and nanophotonics
  • actuators
  • solar cells, batteries, supercapacitors and piezo/triboelectrics

Published Papers (2 papers)

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13 pages, 13874 KiB  
Article
Potential of Commercial Wood-Based Materials as PCB Substrate
by Kirsi Immonen, Johanna Lyytikäinen, Janne Keränen, Kim Eiroma, Mika Suhonen, Minna Vikman, Ville Leminen, Marja Välimäki and Liisa Hakola
Materials 2022, 15(7), 2679; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15072679 - 05 Apr 2022
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2466
Abstract
In our research on sustainable solutions for printed electronics, we are moving towards renewable materials in applications, which can be very challenging from the performance perspective, such as printed circuit boards (PCB). In this article, we examine the potential suitability of wood-based materials, [...] Read more.
In our research on sustainable solutions for printed electronics, we are moving towards renewable materials in applications, which can be very challenging from the performance perspective, such as printed circuit boards (PCB). In this article, we examine the potential suitability of wood-based materials, such as cardboard and veneer, as substrate materials for biodegradable solutions instead of the commonly used glass-fiber reinforced epoxy. Our substrate materials were coated with fire retardant materials for improved fire resistance and screen printed with conductive silver ink. The print quality, electrical conductivity, fire performance and biodegradation were evaluated. It was concluded that if the PCB application allows manufacturing using screen printing instead of an etching process, there is the potential for these materials to act as substrates in, e.g., environmental analytics applications. Full article
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18 pages, 7156 KiB  
Article
Suitability of Paper-Based Substrates for Printed Electronics
by Elina Jansson, Johanna Lyytikäinen, Panu Tanninen, Kim Eiroma, Ville Leminen, Kirsi Immonen and Liisa Hakola
Materials 2022, 15(3), 957; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15030957 - 26 Jan 2022
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 4280
Abstract
Flexible plastic substrates are widely used in printed electronics; however, they cause major climate impacts and pose sustainability challenges. In recent years, paper-based electronics has been studied to increase the recyclability and sustainability of printed electronics. The aim of this paper is to [...] Read more.
Flexible plastic substrates are widely used in printed electronics; however, they cause major climate impacts and pose sustainability challenges. In recent years, paper-based electronics has been studied to increase the recyclability and sustainability of printed electronics. The aim of this paper is to analyze the printability and performance of metal conductor layers on different paper-based substrates using both flexography and screen printing and to compare the achieved performance with that of plastic foils. In addition, the re-pulpability potential of the used paper-based substrates is evaluated. As compared to the common polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, the layer conductivity on paper-based substrates was found to be improved with both the printing methods without having a large influence on the detail rendering. This means that a certain surface roughness and porosity is needed for the improved ink transfer and optimum ink behavior on the surface of the substrate. In the case of uncoated paper-based substrates, the conductivity and print quality decreased by preventing the formation of the proper and intimate ink-substrate contact during the ink transfer. Finally, the re-pulpability trials together with layer quality analysis detected very good, coated substrate candidates for paper-based printed electronics competing with or even outperforming the print quality on the reference PET foil. Full article
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