A consortium of companies including Deutsche Telekom, Fairphone, Infineon and Citronics developed a functional prototype of a DSL router made using chips and other physical components from old smartphones.
The NeoCircuit Router reuses central electronic components such as a mainboard, processor and memory chips from a smartphone, alongside reclaimed physical connectors such as DSL and USB plugs.
It also uses physical accessories including cables and power adapters. Over half of the resources for the modem came from recycled or reused sources, the German mobile operator said, with a 70 percent “circularity in electronics” achieved.
Companies behind the device also include Evonik, MaxLinear, Sagemcom and INC Innovation Center.
Deutsche Telekom highlighted this approach for the creation of new electronic devices would reduce CO2 emissions in production and keep “valuable resources like metals, precious metals, and rare earths in circulation” adding this would “reduce global resource consumption”.
In the prototype reuse of existing processors was credited with cutting CO2 emissions by around half.
Discussing the project, Deutsche Telekom project lead for its sustainability programme, Henning Never, said: “What is new is that, together with our partners, we are not relying solely on traditional electronics recycling, where large parts are still simply incinerated. Instead, we focus on reusing functional components such as processors, memory and transistors.”
He continued: “Our approach is similar to the building blocks principle: we take used individual components and build fully functional new devices from them. In the design and production of end-user devices such as our NeoCircuit Router, this can become a real game-changer in the industry.”