Microsoft Funds Study on Development of Sustainable Materials for Use in Electronics
July 1, 2021 – Oladele Ogunseitan, Ph.D., University of California Presidential Chair and UCI professor of population health and disease prevention, and Julie Schoenung, Ph.D., UCI chair and professor of materials science and engineering, have been awarded a $200,000 research grant from Microsoft Corp. They are co-principal investigators on a project entitled “Sustainable Development of Materials in Printed Circuit Boards for the Next Generation Electronic Products.” The study will address concerns regarding the increasing amount of toxic electronic waste being generated worldwide. More than 50 million tons of it are projected to be created by the end of 2021, with only a fraction of that being recycled. According to Ogunseitan and Schoenung, who are also co-directors of UCI’s World Institute for Sustainable Development of Materials, “an urgent need exists for new research to integrate the drivers of technical innovation and environmental sustainability as mutually reinforcing targets for the electronics industry.”
– Pat Harriman / UCI