In Scotland, researchers at the University of Glasgow have demonstrated that circuit boards can be made out of chocolate.
Although the sweet treat is more whimsy than proof-of-concept, biodegradable electronics could help the world mitigate the tens of millions of tons of e-waste generated each year.
The University of Glasgow team were able to prove the use of chocolate – and more likely options such as bioplastics and paper – by replacing the copper usually found in conventional circuit boards with zinc.
“One key aspect of our work is that almost any substrate material can be used in the process, ranging from paper and bioplastics for more realistic applications, to chocolate for tasty but probably not very practical demonstrations,” Professor Jeff Kettle, from the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering, told The Independent. “We are now exploring ways to adapt this technique to other fields such as moldable electronics or biosensing, which could also benefit from a cheap and versatile way to make high quality circuits with low environmental footprints.”