Environmentally Friendly, Proprietary Technologies

Toward a Sustainable Society - Elephantech's Environmental Information Disclosure Initiatives

With the increasing momentum to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is a growing trend towards greater environmental consciousness.

In January 2022, the California State Senate passed a bill requiring all companies with annual gross revenues of $1 billion or more to report their emissions annually for all scopes, including direct emissions (Scope 1), emissions from the purchase and use of electricity (Scope 2), and indirect emissions, including emissions from the company's supply chain (Scope 3). ¹Following the revision of Japan’s Corporate Governance Code in 2021, companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s top market – to be newly established as the Prime Market in Spring 2022 – will be required to disclose information following the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). ²

Amid such global trends, Elephantech believes it is a corporate responsibility to communicate on efforts made in reducing environmental impact and has worked on the visualization of its sustainability efforts from the three angles of “Natural resources,” “Carbon footprint,” and “Water consumption.”

On a mission to “Making the world sustainable with new manufacturing technologies,” Elephantech will strive to make the electronics industry sustainable.

1: California Senate Passes Bill for First Law in US Requiring Companies to Disclose all GHG Emissions
2: Announcement of the establishment of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and the direction of standards development (dir.co.jp)

Elephantech’s Environmental Communication

Assumptions underlying the impact estimation

These estimates are per unit area of circuit boards in square meters.

Copper consumption

Calculated impact for a circuit board of single-layer, 18μm copper, 30% of copper coverage.

Carbon footprint/Water consumption

Calculated cradle-to-gate impact for a circuit board of 2 layers, 6.6μm Cu, 25μm polyimide substrate, 30% copper coverage, 10% gold plating coverage and 0.1μm gold plating. The impact varies from 70% to 80% depending on circuit board design.

Manufacturing cost

The estimated impact is on the assumption of mass production at a scale.

Metal Inkjet Printing Technology Drastically Reduces Environmental Impact Without Affecting Product Performance

Conventional manufacturing method (Subtractive method)

A fundamental process of modern manufacturing that has been used for over 100 years
A major issue is that the stacking and scraping processes generate large amounts of liquid wastes, resulting in significant environmental impact

Elephantech's manufacturing method (Pure Additive™ method)

The method transforms nanosized metal into ink, forming a metal pattern and printing directly and as required
The printing process in itself has an extremely low environmental impact in terms of waste, water consumption and CO₂ emissions
Inkjet printing of metals is an overwhelmingly complex technology, but Elephantech was the first - and currently only¹ - company to succeed in bringing it to market and mass production

1: As of January 2022, based on publicly available information.

2ndPI_Promotional_SP_00924_16_9_1200px-1

Our P-Flex® PI Sample

Climate Change: Effects on Reducing CO₂Emissions

We used Life-Cycle Assessment to compare the carbon footprint of conventional PCB manufacturing methods to that of Elephantech’s Pure Additive™ processing¹
The figures for conventional manufacturing methods were taken from Carbon Footprint Analysis of Printed Circuit Board², a study conducted by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The paper mentioned above is a detailed LCA evaluation using actual data from Shenzhen Sunshine Circuits Technology Co., Ltd, and Elephantech also followed its evaluation procedure

Estimation and simulation logic (ELT method)

Unit: kg-CO₂eq/m²

Item	Existing 2 layers	ELT method 2 layers, 6.6um	Estimation logic	Simulation logic
Materials - CCL	15.9	0.2	25μm polyimide film	Proportional to the number of layers
Materials - DES	9.1	0.0	No DES process	No change
Materials - Electroless Copper Plating	0.3	1.2	From existing, assuming proportional to copper thickness. Assume 0.5μm copper thickness for existing method. 0.3*6.6/0.5	Proportional to the number of layers and copper thickness
Materials - Gold Plating	7.5	7.5	Same as existing	No change
Materials - Other	6.6	2.4	Removes materials needed for subtractive process, adds metal ink and other necessary materials	No change
Materials - Waste process	9.4	0.5	1/20 of existing, given the waste amount is estimated as 1/20	Proportional to the number of layers and copper thickness
Production energy	37.1	10.9	Simulation of actual data	Proportional to the total material carbon footprint
Transportation&Packaging - Materials	17.0	1.8	From existing, assuming proportional to the total material carbon footprint	Proportional to the total material carbon footprint
Waste management	0.8	0.0	1/20 of existing, given the waste amount is estimated as 1/20	Proportional to the number of layers and copper thickness
Total	103.8	24.5

1: Assumptions: Copper film thickness 6.6um

2: Winco K.C. Yung, Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, Karpagam Subramanian, Chapter 13 - Carbon Footprint Analysis of Printed Circuit Board, Editor(s): Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, Environmental Carbon Footprints, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2018, Pages 365-431, ISBN 9780128128497, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812849-7.00013-1.

Comparison of existing method and ELT method
(Reduction in Water Consumption and Toxic Substance Emissions)

Conventional manufacturing method

Major item	Process	Waste liquid
Start material	CCL（Film＋Cu）	Omit the waste liquid in CCL production
Drilling process	Via hole drilling
Drilling process	Washing	Waste water
Catalyst addition	Cleaner	Alkali waste liquid
	Washing	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Soft Etching	Heavy-metal acid waste liquid (contains Cu)
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(weak)
	Predip	Acid waste liquid
	Add palladium catalyst	Acid waste liquid, Recovery
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(weak)
Electroless Cu	Accelerator	Sn, Acid waste liquid (Pd contain)
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(weak)
	Electroless Cu	Heavy-metal acid waste liquid (contains Cu)
	Washing	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Drying
Electrolytic Cu	Cleaner	Acid waste liquid
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(weak)
	Predip	Acid waste liquid
	Electrolytic Cu	※None since it is circulated
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(Cu contain)
	Rust prevention	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Washing	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Drying
DF	Soft Etching	Acid waste liquid(Cu contain)
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(weak)
	Drying
	DF laminate
Exposure	Exposure
DES	Developing	DFR, Alkali waste liquid
	Washing	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Etching	Acid waste liquid, Recovery
	Washing	Acid waste liquid(weak)
	Stripping	DFR, Alkali waste liquid
	Washing	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Drying

Elephantech's manufacturing method

Major item	Process	Waste liquid
Start material	Film
Drilling process	Via hole drilling
Printing	Printing
	Drying
	Sintering
	Cleaner	Alkali waste liquid
	Circulated Washing	※None since it is circulated
Electroless Cu	Electroless Cu	Heavy-metal acid waste liquid (contains Cu)
	Washing	Alkali waste liquid(weak)
	Rust prevention	Waste water
	Circulate Washing	※None since it is circulated
	Drying