20206-06-12 ワシントン大学（UW）
University of Washington researchers developed an artificial intelligence system that automatically estimates the environmental impacts of making different electronic devices. The system takes only a minute to run — combing through databases, including images of the insides of electronics — and achieves estimates with accuracy similar to human experts’. Photo: Vadim Zhakupov/iStock
＜関連情報＞
- https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/06/12/uw-researchers-built-ai-agents-that-quickly-estimate-electronic-devices-carbon-footprints/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-026-01653-w
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01333-7
マルチモーダル人工知能エージェントを用いた持続可能性評価 Sustainability assessment using multimodal artificial intelligence agents
Zhihan Zhang,Alexander Metzger,Yuxuan Mei,Felix Hähnlein,Zachary Englhardt,Tingyu Cheng,Gregory D. Abowd,Shwetak Patel,Adriana Schulz & Vikram Iyer
Nature Electronics Published:12 June 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-026-01653-w
Abstract
Reducing the growing environmental impact of the computing industry requires assessing the emissions of electronics at scale. However, a traditional life-cycle assessment (LCA) of an electronic device, which maps materials and processes to environmental impacts, often requires proprietary or unavailable data. Here we report a multimodal multi-agent artificial intelligence system that emulates the collaborative process between LCA professionals and stakeholders (such as product managers and engineers) to estimate the carbon footprint of electronic devices. The agents iteratively construct a complete life-cycle inventory by leveraging a structured data abstraction and software tools that mine information from the public Internet, including repair communities and government regulatory databases. This reduces data gaps and data collection from weeks or months of expert time to under 1 min. The system can calculate the carbon footprint within 19% of expert LCAs with zero proprietary data (typical of the variation between human LCAs). We also show that by encoding domain-specific knowledge, environmental impact estimation can be reframed as a data-driven prediction task, in which both unknown products and emission factors are represented as weighted combinations of similar ones with known emissions.
持続可能な電子機器のためのリサイクル可能なビトリマーベースのプリント基板 Recyclable vitrimer-based printed circuit boards for sustainable electronics
Zhihan Zhang,Agni K. Biswal,Ankush Nandi,Kali Frost,Jake A. Smith,Bichlien H. Nguyen,Shwetak Patel,Aniruddh Vashisth & Vikram Iyer
Nature Sustainability Published:26 April 2024
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01333-7
Abstract
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are ubiquitous in electronics and make up a substantial fraction of environmentally hazardous electronic waste when devices reach end-of-life. Their recycling is challenging due to their use of irreversibly cured thermoset epoxies in manufacturing. Here, to tackle this challenge, we present a PCB formulation using transesterification vitrimers (vPCBs) and an end-to-end fabrication process compatible with standard manufacturing ecosystems. Our cradle-to-cradle life-cycle assessment shows substantial environmental impact reduction of the vPCBs over conventional PCBs in 11 categories. We successfully manufactured functional prototypes of Internet of Things devices transmitting 2.4 GHz radio signals on vPCBs with electrical and mechanical properties meeting industry standards. Fractures and holes in vPCBs are repairable while retaining comparable performance over multiple repair cycles. We further demonstrate a non-destructive recycling process based on polymer swelling with small-molecule solvents. Unlike traditional solvolysis recycling, this swelling process does not degrade the materials. Through dynamic mechanical analysis, we find negligible catalyst loss, minimal changes in storage modulus and equivalent polymer backbone composition across multiple recycling cycles. This recycling process achieves 98% polymer recovery, 100% fibre recovery and 91% solvent recovery to create new vPCBs without performance degradation. Overall, this work paves the way for sustainability transitions in the electronics industry.
