The Future Of Biodegradable Technolgy Creation: Liquid Crystals

Nearly 400 million electronic items are dumped into landfills annually, and less than 20% of that e-waste is recycled due to their unsustainable compositions. This expels heavy metals that can damage our central nervous systems and water sources and releases a dangerous amount of greenhouse gasses into the environment. There is an urgent need for the creation of biodegradable technology. To help counter this issue, I employ a cellulose derivative, hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), and its potential as a dependable biodegradable material. HPC forms a liquid crystal phase with a chiral nematic structure. Due to their molecular properties, they are soluble in both water and organic solvents. They also have many attractive characteristics including angle-dependent optical properties and the ability to self-assemble, making them suitable candidates for programmable sensing technology creation. In my experiments, pure HPC solutions and solutions containing Carbon Black and Mxene as conductive additives were used to complete basic circuits to test their conductivity. Potentiostatic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was then used to quantify the conductive potential and resistivity for comparative analysis of the various solutions. The findings of this project are significant to the developmental field of biodegradable technology.