Influence of the material composition on the environmental impact of surface-mount device (SMD) transistors

•Large influence of SMD transistor material composition on their impact.•Environmental impact due to raw material acquisition represents up to 99.9%.•Gold content generates most of the environmental impact.•Comparing with EcoInvent's, the overall impacts vary up to 167 times, due to gold.•Part production and end of life have lower influence on the results.

The aim of this study is to better elucidate the influence of surface-mount device (SMD) transistor material composition on the environmental impact of such transistors. A life cycle assessment (LCA) has been performed in which the EcoInvent dataset was updated with material compositions provided by several manufacturers. The influence of the material composition has been studied, providing a more precise understanding of the environmental impact. The software used to develop the LCA model was SimaPro 8.0.3.14, developed by Pré Consultants. The LCA was calculated with the CML methodology. In addition, a life cycle inventory was developed using EcoInvent v3.The EcoInvent methodology was used as a comparison tool for information provided by the manufacturers in terms of environmental impact, thus improving transistor selection in electronics design. The environmental impact of an SMD transistor can vary substantially with respect to material composition. Raw material acquisition represent between 20.3% and 99.9% of the total impact in most environmental categories. By contrast, the environmental impact of each transistor created due to part production is usually lower. The lowest environmental impact comes from the end of life treatments, values for which are approximately 0.1%.This environmental impact study demonstrates the large influence of transistor material composition for those analyzed herein.