Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Self‐Powered Wireless Sensing E‐Sticker Based Devices

A self‐powered wireless sensing e‐sticker (SWISE), combining triboelectric and discharge breakdown effects, can serve as an all‐in‐one wireless sensing solution with minimal energy consumption compared to state‐of‐the‐art wireless sensing techniques. However, the environmental impacts of SWISE have never been clearly assessed. This study conducted a cradle‐to‐grave life cycle assessment (LCA) of SWISE using the software OpenLCA, modeling its whole cradle‐to‐grave lifecycle from raw material extraction, fabrication, and usage to end‐of‐life treatment, and comparing SWISE with prevalent sensing techniques. The results indicated that SWISE with PVC configuration emits 1.24 kg CO 2 per 1000 sensing units per year, which is 1–2 orders of magnitude lower than sensors equipped with flexible batteries. We also evaluated the SWISE‐based wireless power supplier (SWISE‐WPS) designed for wireless energy transmission. Its environmental impacts per kWh were benchmarked against other grid sources in Guangdong Province, and a techno‐economic analysis was performed to estimate the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Results showed that both environmental impacts and LCOE of SWISE‐WPS devices ($0.11 kWh −1 ) were slightly higher than those of prevalent renewable energies with great potential for further optimization in material selection, energy usage, fabrication methods, and structure design. Finally, a unified environmental and economic metric was proposed to evaluate the overall performance of various sensing and power supply techniques, providing insights for trade‐offs between environmental and economic perspectives, which may guide the optimizing direction for future development of SWISE‐based devices.