Last year, the winning project of the International James Dyson Award was MarinaTex, a biodegradable and compostable plastic made from fish waste (the skin and scales). The eco-friendly single-use plastic breaks down within four to six weeks, tackling not only the plastic pollution crisis but food waste as well.
This year, fish waste is being used differently to reduce plastic pollution and food waste. A team of scientists led by Hai-Dong Yu, Juqing Liu, and Wei Huang from China’s Nanjing Tech University developed a transparent electronic skin made of fish gelatin for flexible electroluminescent devices. The gelatin is derived from collagen in fish scales.
The team came up with this idea because they wanted to find a more sustainable and eco-friendly material for the film of wearable electronics. Currently, the technology relies on the use of plastic. The electronic components are embedded within a stretchy, flexible, and transparent plastic film base. Such “electronic skin” gadgets can only be worn once and are discarded within about a week.
Their fish gelatin film works just as well as petroleum-based plastic film. The difference is it’ll degrade in soil (at the landfill or elsewhere) within 24 hours instead of years. And if mixed for a few seconds with 60ºC (140ºF) water, the fish film dissolves back into gelatin that can be reused. They then tested the material by using it to build a working alternating current electroluminescent device. It continued to glow even after being bent and relaxed 1,000 times.
Skin-worn electronics are relatively new, but they will likely become trendy soon as they show great promise in many applications, from health monitoring to glowing tattoos. For example, a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology developed a waterproof device that can monitor respiration, heart rate, and motion data—all of which can be transmitted to a smartphone up to 15 meters (49 ft) away. It enables a user to comfortably go about their daily activities wearing the device for up to two weeks before it has to be replaced. However, once that day comes for it to be thrown away, it would be better if it were made of sustainable materials, such as the fish scales that won’t harm the environment.
