Applicability of Different Bio-based Polymers for Wiring Boards

Abstract

The paper gives a review of experiments for the application of biodegradable, sustainable polymers as a wiring board material. In the paper two different biobased materials and the standard PCB materials FR4 and FR2 were compared. The investigations refer to mechanical, electrical performance, surface quality the flammability and applicability for Polymer Thick Film Technology (PTFT) of the biobased material. The biobased materials are polylactic acid (PLA) mixed with different contents of cellulose acetate (CA) or flame retardant zinc pyrophosphate (ZnPP) and polyurethane (PU) with CA. The results show that the addition of CA to the polymers leads to a change of different properties for PLA and to a significant change in mechanical properties for PU. The use of ZnPP in PLA shows major improvements regarding the flammability of the polymer. The properties of the samples are in the same order of magnitude as the properties of FR2.