Developing Methods for Assessing and Improving Circularity of Consumer Electronics Products and Semiconductor Chips

Abstract In the present digital age, consumer electronics products (CEP) have become ubiquitous, providing numerous conveniences in various aspects of daily life. The significant increase in the production and use of these products coupled with their unplanned End-of-life (EoL) management leads to the depletion of rare earth materials, increasing carbon emissions, and growing electronic waste, presenting unique sustainability challenges. Semiconductor chips are an integral component in almost every product from automobiles to industrial machinery and household appliances. The increased momentum to implement artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and all other related Industry 4.0 technologies has significantly increased the need for semiconductor chips from an estimated $526.8 billion in sales in 2023 to $ 1 trillion by 2030. Semiconductor chip manufacturing is also highly resource-intensive, uses a variety of rare materials and require large amounts of water and energy for manufacturing. The majority of these semiconductor chips are discarded at EoL together with the products they are contained. Mitigating the negative impacts caused by the increasing production and use of CEPs as well as semiconductor chips requires transitioning from the linear and ‘take-make-use-dispose’ practices to a more Circular Economy (CE). To operationalize CE practices, products must be designed, manufactured, used, and handled at end-of-life (EoL) to maintain a circular flow of resources. In order to improve the design of a product to be more circular, a comprehensive method to assess circularity is required. While numerous methods have been proposed for evaluating product circularity, most are fraught with many limitations. The project team at the University of Kentucky, in collaboration with industry partners and with funding from NIST (Award #s: 70NANB22H104, 70NANB23H261), has been engaged in research to address some of these limitations and develop an approach for Product Circularity Assessment (PCA). This proposed project will undertake addressing limitations related to the PCA method identified through industry case studies to make it more robust and approaches to leverage the findings from prior work to improve decision making during the product development process (PDP) for circular product design (CPD). The project will also utilize the PCA method to identify opportunities for increasing circularity of semiconductor chips. In collaboration with industry advisory partners from Amazon Inc., Panasonic and HP this project will focus on: • Leveraging the PCA method to identify requirements for establishing minimum thresholds for product circularity. • Enhancing the understanding of potential trade-offs among the product circularity requirements to optimize CPD decisions. • Establishing approaches to integrate CPD decisions during the PDP. • Identifying key requirements to promote circularity of semiconductor chips. The project team comprised of Drs. Badurdeen and Jawahir from the University of Kentucky have extensive expertise to successfully achieve the project objectives. They will engage and interact closely with the CE in Manufacturing group at NIST, as well as industry partners, to ensure project deliverables are aligned with their activities targeted towards US transition to CE.