Screentec, Finland
Sustainable electrodes have been developed in EU funded project Sustronics. The main goal of the Sustronics project is to transform the European electronics industry by harnessing the power of sustainable practices and fostering innovation.
This project demonstrates the possibility to reduce the environmental impact of single-use medical electrodes by chancing the used materials to more sustainable ones:
- Replacing the fossil-based plastic substrate to more environmentally friendly
- Replacing Silver paste printed conductive patterns to carbon or copper paste printed
- Replacing the PET/Al pouch to more environmentally friendly packaging.
Environmental impact is remarkable, see diagram for GWP figures.
Functionality
Demonstrator bases on multi-use measurement electronics and softwaretogether with custom disposable sustainable medical electrodes. Electrode isattached to the user to measurement specific location and electronics isattached to the electrode.
Electronics start to get signal from the user through the medical electrode andsignal is forwarded to the software where it is processed and showed to theuser for further analysis.
Benefits of the Project
Motivation for this project is to make more environmentally friendly disposablemedical electrodes to cause as little burden to the planet earth as possible.
Based on calculations and tests with reference electrodes, it is possible to makemore sustainable medical electrodes suitable for intended bio signal measurementand with cheaper price.
At the moment there are no medical electrodes available which would have beenmanufactured using for example paper-based substrate.
Target Industry
The same materials and product stack can be used also for other applications like IOT, smart buildings, Packaging and large area sensors.
Organic & Printed Components
- Conductive path
- Interconnection
- Printed electrode
Classical Components
The demonstrator is using multi-use measurement electronics which are madeusing classical components. No classical electronic components included to thedemonstrator expect the snap connectors.