Technological progress is increasingly digitizing and facilitating our daily lives, thus increasing prosperity, but at the same time drastically increasing the amount of electronic waste. Every year, around 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated worldwide, a significant portion of which could be avoided through targeted repair and reuse strategies. So far, reuse has often failed due to inefficient and costly testing procedures for electronic devices. The InnovationCampus Mobility of the Future (ICM), a research platform of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the University of Stuttgart, has taken on this problem. The declared goal is sustainable and emission-free mobility of the future – from product development to recycling.

In this context, the ICM junior research group “Sustainable Electronics” led by Dr. Florian Stamer at the wbk Institute for Production Technology at the KIT has developed an AI-supported inspection strategy that optimizes the recycling of printed circuit boards. In collaboration with the startup Desoltik and funded by the ICM, a process has been developed that combines optical, electrical, thermographic, and X-ray-based technologies. The artificial intelligence captures and analyzes the test data in real time and adaptively determines the required test depth and the optimal test procedures for specific assemblies. After each test sequence, a data-driven evaluation of the measured values is carried out, whereupon the inspection strategy is dynamically adapted. As soon as a sufficient database is available, the system derives the optimal “R strategy” – based on the principles of the circular economy such as repair, reuse or recycle.

Particularly noteworthy is the transfer from research to practice: the inspection method is a scalable solution for the circular economy and can be used in both single-piece and series production. Recycling and remanufacturing companies in the electronics sector and electronics manufacturers benefit from the technology because it can be used to efficiently repair used products and rejects.

The team is working with Schneider Electric, an international company with many years of experience in sustainable manufacturing, to industrialize the process. The French group has received multiple “Sustainability Lighthouse” awards from the World Economic Forum for its factories. The robotics and automation solutions that Schneider Electric develops itself and uses in its own production are now also being used in this application.

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