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Simultaneous Evaluations of Material Toxicity and Ease of Disassembly during Electronics Design
Author(s) -
Chang HsiangTang,
Lu ChienHan
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of industrial ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.377
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1530-9290
pISSN - 1088-1980
DOI - 10.1111/jiec.12052
Subject(s) - usability , design for the environment , computer science , software , electronics , manufacturing engineering , process (computing) , product (mathematics) , systems engineering , product design , engineering , human–computer interaction , geometry , mathematics , electrical engineering , programming language , operating system
Summary Design for environment (DfE) has become an important strategy for sustainable development. However, tools used for designing and tools used to conduct environmental evaluations are currently independent, and therefore the data these tools rely on are not easily communicated and integrated. In this research, we have developed a new software tool (EcoCAD) to provide support for DfE. The primary aim is to enable designers to spend less time on complicated environmental evaluations and independently and quickly develop products that have improved material toxicity and ease‐of‐disassembly characteristics. Fraunhofer‐Institut für Zuverlässigkeit und Mikrointegration's method for developing toxic potential indicators (TPIs) was used to create a Taiwanese TPI database from information contained in the United Nations’ globally harmonized system's material safety data‐sheet databases, and EcoCAD was developed and embedded on a commercial computer‐aided design (CAD) software platform. In addition to common industrial materials, the toxicity of materials in generic printed circuit boards and in generic electric/electronic components is built into EcoCAD. EcoCAD not only provides designers with a functionality for monitoring TPIs during the design process, but also provides the designer with suggestions for reducing the toxicity and improving the ease of disassembly of their products. EcoCAD is an extremely practical tool because a designer is able to understand the material toxicity and ease‐of‐disassembly characteristics of the product during the CAD modeling stage itself, thereby saving time and cost and inspiring better designs. At the present time, EcoCAD focuses on toxicity of materials and ease of disassembly, but our concept could be extended to other environmental characteristics. For example, if a suitable life cycle assessment database was integrated with commercial CAD software, greenhouse gas emissions or European Union energy‐related product directives could be considered.