Chitin-based circuit boards win Google Biodesign Sprint

In Rhode Island, a team comprised of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design students has won the first Google Biodesign Sprint competition with their biodegradable printed circuit board vision.

The group, comprised of RISD industrial design students Avantika Velho and Connie Cheng and Brown University computational biology student Alexander Le, call their two-part design concept Mobius.

First, chitin, a biopolymer found in crustaceans, is used in conjunction with other materials to produce PCBs.  Bacteria is then used to break the chitin down into nitrogen, which can be used as fertilizer, and a “microbial soup” helps break down the heavy metals into nanoparticles.  “We wanted to have both technical, feasible elements and also future thinking,” Cheng said. 

The Biodesign Sprint is organized by Biodesign Challenge and sponsored by Google. It invites “students, scientists, engineers, artists, designers, hobbyists — everyone — to come together and show off (their) brightest concepts and visions.”  Forty teams from 15 countries participated.