Isotropic Paper Directly from Anisotropic Wood: Top-Down Green Transparent Substrate Toward Biodegradable Electronics

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Abstract
Flexible electronics have found useful applications in both the scientific and industrial communities. However, substrates traditionally used for flexible electronics, such as plastic, cause many environmental issues. Therefore, a transparent substrate made from natural materials provides a promising alternative because it can be degraded in nature. The traditional bottom-up fabrication method for transparent paper is expensive, environmentally unfriendly, and time-consuming. In this work, for the first time, we developed a top-down method to fabricate isotropic, transparent paper directly from anisotropic wood. The top-down method includes two steps: a delignification process to bleach the wood by lignin removal and a pressing process for removing light-reflecting and -scattering sources. The resulting isotropic, transparent paper has high transmittance of about 90% and high haze over 80% and is demonstrated as a nature-disposable substrate for electronic/optical devices. Adjusting the pressing ratio used changes the density of the resulting paper, which tunes the microstructure-related properties of the isotropic, transparent paper. This top-down method is simple, fast, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective, which can greatly promote the development of paper-based green optical and electronic devices.
Funding Information
  • Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2018YFB1105400)

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