Cover page in ACS Appl. Nano. Mater., following Betker et al., ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 2023, 6(4), 13677-13688. The fabrication of sustainable electrical devices is an important challenge we need to master to meet the requirements of a sustainable society. Here, we use spray coating in combination with a roll-to-roll setup for the large-scale fabrication of cellulose-based functional films. The natural biopolymer cellulose serves as dispersing agent in spray inks and as substrate material in the form of ultrathin, transparent foils. By integrating functional building blocks such as nanoparticles and polymers into the cellulose films, we can create cellulose-based organic electronics.
The use of renewable, sustainable materials and environmentally friendly processes for flexible electronics and photovoltaics is of paramount importance for a sustainable economy. Cellulose in particular will play an important role in this. Its advantages are manifold. Customized cellulose fibers have excellent mechanical properties. Their building blocks, cellulose nanofibrils (CNF), can be functionalized, even envisaged in light-weight construction and 3D printing, as is already done with wood. The combination of CNF and synthetic polymers leads to mechanically strong composites with tailored physical properties, e.g. conductive. By combining CNF materials and spray coating, controlled templates with tailored nanostructure and wettability can be developed for novel paper-based electronics. In the future, my research in sustainable materials could fit into the larger field of a circular bioeconomy.
