Sustainable Chemistry in Electronics

Symposium Organizers: Michael Kirschner, President, Design Chain Associates, LLC, and Leo T. Kenny, Founder and Principal Technologist, Planet Singular

The electronics industry and its supply chain continue to labor under government, environmental NGO, investor and customer pressure to reduce the presence of toxic substances in products and manufacturing processes. While the industry has generally had a degree of success replacing some of these substances, growing pressure and awareness of continued use of toxic and non-sustainable substances in parts and materials in electronic products, and in their manufacture, continues to raise concern and result in additional—and not always harmonized—regulation worldwide. Honed for efficiency and cost-effectiveness over decades, chemistry and toxicity has not been a focus area. Today it must be. The extraordinary potential and opportunities (maybe for a new Moore’s Law of toxicity reduction?) for creativity and improvement in this area result from the lack of optimization. This session will demonstrate the creativity and leadership up and down the electronics industry supply chain. Presentations on green chemistry in electronic products and throughout the electronics supply chain are welcome from academia, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and industry are of interest for this session.