Lignin as a Climate-Friendly Raw Material and its Possible Use in Microelectronic

Lignin is one of the most common biopolymers in nature and the second most abundant natural polymer on earth. It is an aromatic biomacromolecule which offers huge potential as raw material for biopolymers. In the paper, applications for lignin and other sustainable materials are described. The occurrence in the different plants as well as the application fields and producers for lignin as a biocompatible material are mentioned. Lignin based epoxy PCB boards were manufactured first from IBM in 2001. Furthermore, flexible electronic materials as well as transistors were manufactured using lignin. At the TU Dresden, completely biodegradable nature inspirited circuit boards have been developed. These called “Leaftronics” use the natural structure of leaves to produce electronic substrates. Another new biodegradable alternative to FR-4 is the patented Soluboard® from the British start-up Jiva Materials. A vertical sandwich structure of Mo/lignin and PVA film/A forming a synaptic transistor array with lignin as dielectric was described as well. A collection of material data for a possible simulation of the lignin-based components are given.