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Short answer: biotechnology can grow useful electronic substrates and make experimental conductive composites, but the evidence does not yet show a practical, fully copper-free replacement for conventional conductors. A mycelium board may be biologically grown while its circuit traces are deposited copper and gold. Bacterial cellulose is naturally an electrical insulator and needs conductive polymers, carbon materials, nanoparticles or other fillers. Cable-bacteria fibers are a promising biological conductor, yet remain an early research candidate rather than a manufacturable substitute for copper.
What “copper-free” has to mean in an electronic device
The phrase can describe three different claims, and confusing them produces most of the overstatements about biological electronics.
Copper-free substrate
A substrate is the sheet, film or molded body that supports traces and components. Mycelium skins and bacterial cellulose can replace a petroleum-derived plastic or fiberglass support while remaining electrically insulating. That makes the substrate bio-based, not the circuit conductor. Copper traces, solder, silicon integrated circuits and metallic contacts may still be present.
Copper-free conductive track
For this stronger claim, the path carrying current must be made without copper. A composite containing a conductive polymer, graphene-derived carbon or another filler could meet a narrow “no copper in the trace” definition, but it is not necessarily fully biological, biodegradable or commercially practical. The conductive phase, binders, contacts and component attachments all need to be identified.
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Copper-free complete device
A complete device has no copper anywhere: not in traces, plated vias, foil antennas, connectors, solder, shielding or packaged components. Conventional chips and many passive components also contain materials that are not bio-derived. A bio-grown board therefore cannot be called a copper-free electronic device unless its entire bill of materials and manufacturing process support that claim.
Mycelium: a biodegradable platform with metalized traces
Fungal mycelium is a network of hyphae that can be grown into skins and then processed into flexible sheets. The 2022 MycelioTronics study demonstrated such skins as substrates for flexible circuits (PNAS study, 2022). The biological material supplies the shape, flexibility and potential biodegradability; it does not supply the high-conductivity trace reported in the paper.
What the 2022 demonstration actually measured
The researchers deposited a 400-nanometre copper film, used chromium as an adhesion layer, and added a 50-nanometre gold layer on some traces. Laser ablation patterned the conductor. The highest reported trace conductivity was 9.75 ± 1.44 × 104 S cm−1, and the metalized structures survived more than 2,000 bending cycles. Both figures describe the deposited metal, measured by the PNAS research team in 2022—not untreated mycelium.
Surface preparation is a real manufacturing constraint. Mature mycelium can develop a crust that prevents a continuous metal film, and conductivity varies with the skin’s age and surface condition. A process that grows a uniform biological sheet must therefore control growth, drying, cleaning and film adhesion before it can make repeatable circuits.
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What improved in 2025
A follow-up study treated the foil after growth to improve its surface and durability (Advanced Functional Materials, 2025). Deposited metallic thin films reached 18.08 ± 2.38 × 104 S cm−1 and withstood more than 10,000 bending repetitions, according to that research team. The work used biodegradable shellac as a moisture-resistant coating and adhesive. Ethanol can dissolve the shellac, allowing the metal film to be detached for recovery.
The same study demonstrated a flexible NFC tag by laminating copper foil onto mycelium and patterning it. This is valuable evidence for a recyclable, flexible bio-based substrate, but it is direct evidence that copper remains in the demonstrated antenna. Moisture also changes the electrical properties of the foil, so an application must specify its humidity and sealing conditions.
Bacterial cellulose: strong matrix, insulating material
Bacterial cellulose is a biosynthesized network of cellulose nanofibers. It offers high mechanical strength, a large surface area and a porous structure, making it attractive for thin films, sensors and wearable interfaces. As synthesized, however, it is an excellent dielectric—an insulator—not a conductor. The 2023 review Conductive bacterial cellulose: From drug delivery to flexible electronics describes how conductivity is introduced (Carbohydrate Polymers review, published August 1, 2023).
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- Conductive polymers: polyaniline, polypyrrole and PEDOT can be polymerized within or coated onto the cellulose network.
- Carbon-based phases: graphene oxide and related carbon materials create percolating pathways when enough material is distributed through the matrix.
- Particles and fillers: nanoparticles or other conductive additives can be embedded, deposited or chemically linked to the fibers.
These composites have been investigated for flexible batteries, sensors, electromagnetic-interference shielding, conductive scaffolds and wearable or implantable biointerfaces. The current-carrying phase—not the unmodified cellulose—sets the electrical performance. A carbon or polymer conductor may eliminate copper from a particular trace while still relying on petrochemical feedstocks, inorganic particles, or processing chemicals.
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Functionalization changes the material’s other properties
Adding a conductive phase can reduce mechanical strength, lower porosity and alter the cellulose’s chemistry. Those changes matter when a film must remain breathable, swell in a biological environment or degrade at end of life. A 2025 review expands the design space to conductive polymers, metal nanoparticles, enzymes and peptides for biosensors, neural interfaces and other smart bioelectronics (ACS Polymers Au review, 2025). It also reinforces the key distinction: the useful electrical behavior comes from functionalization and composite architecture, not from plain bacterial cellulose replacing copper by itself.
Cable bacteria: the most direct biological conductor lead
Cable bacteria are filamentous microorganisms with electrically conducting fibers running along their bodies. Their centimeter-scale conduction makes them unusual among biological materials and raises the possibility of fibers grown or assembled into bioelectronic structures. A 2026 paper studied a pullulan coating intended to preserve the wires’ conductivity and improve handling (ACS Applied Bio Materials, published February 11, 2026).
The paper’s authors—Anastasia Gerzhik of Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University and Dmitrii Pankratov of the University of Antwerp—state: “Presently, there are no biobased alternatives to conventional conductors such as metals and organic polymers, as their conductivity is too low.” Their work presents protective coating as a step toward implementation, not a production process for copper-free consumer electronics. Questions about cultivation scale, contacting, lifetime, environmental stability, patterning and integration with components remain unresolved.
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How the approaches compare
| Approach | What biotechnology supplies | Copper status in the demonstrated work | Electrical evidence | Readiness and end of life |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mycelium skins (2022) | Flexible biodegradable substrate | 400 nm copper traces, chromium adhesion layer and some gold coatings | 9.75 ± 1.44 × 104 S cm−1; over 2,000 bends, both for metalized traces | Laboratory demonstration; substrate may biodegrade, while mixed metals require recovery |
| Treated mycelium foil (2025) | Improved substrate surface and protective shellac system | Copper foil used for the demonstrated NFC tag; metallic films remain present | 18.08 ± 2.38 × 104 S cm−1; over 10,000 bending repetitions for deposited films | Laboratory demonstration; ethanol can release metal by dissolving shellac |
| Bacterial-cellulose composites | Insulating cellulose matrix plus an added conductive phase | May avoid copper in a selected composite, but fillers can be synthetic, carbon-based or metallic | Conductivity depends on polymer, graphene-derived material, nanoparticles, loading and network design; no single value represents cellulose itself | Research platform for sensors, batteries and biointerfaces; filler and matrix separation must be designed |
| Cable-bacteria fibers | Biological conducting fiber | No copper is required for the biological fiber concept | High conductivity over centimeter-scale distances is being investigated; a practical device specification is not established | Early research candidate; no verified commercial replacement |
What a credible copper-free claim should disclose
When reading a paper, prototype description or product claim, use the following checks before treating it as a copper replacement.
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- Identify the measured material. Is the conductivity measured on bare mycelium, plain cellulose, a composite, a deposited metal film or an entire assembled trace?
- Read the bill of materials. Look for copper foil, plated contacts, chromium or other adhesion layers, gold, solder, metallic nanoparticles, conventional chips and connectors.
- Separate one-time performance from service life. A bending-cycle count is a laboratory durability result under stated conditions; it does not establish years of operation, humidity tolerance or production yield.
- Check the geometry and scale. A centimeter-long biological filament or a thin test coupon is not automatically suitable for low-resistance power distribution, multilayer routing or high-frequency signals.
- Follow the disposal route. A biodegradable substrate bonded to permanent metals is a mixed material. Recovery, delamination and safe disposal need an explicit process.
Engineering trade-offs beyond conductivity
Electrical performance
Copper combines very high conductivity with mature deposition, etching, soldering and reliability processes. A bio-based composite must meet resistance, current-density, contact-resistance and signal-frequency requirements for its intended circuit. A conductivity number from a metal coating cannot be transferred to the underlying biological substrate.
Moisture and environmental response
Mycelium and cellulose contain hydrophilic structures that can absorb water or change dimensions. Moisture can alter adhesion, dielectric behavior and the resistance of a conductive film. Protective coatings improve stability but add another material that must be removed or managed at end of life.
Mechanical and manufacturing constraints
Conductive fillers can stiffen a cellulose network, block pores or weaken fiber-to-fiber bonds. Mycelium surfaces can vary from batch to batch and may require cleaning or post-growth treatment to accept a continuous film. Scaling a biological growth step also requires control of contamination, thickness, drying and uniformity.
Recycling versus biodegradation
Biodegrading the organic portion of a circuit does not make copper, gold, chromium, nanoparticles or conventional semiconductors disappear. A design may instead aim for disassembly: dissolve an adhesive, peel off the conductor, recover the metal and compost or otherwise process the substrate separately. That is a circularity strategy, not proof that the whole device is biodegradable.
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Where bio-based electronics are most plausible first
Near-term applications are those that benefit from flexibility, low mass, biocompatibility or temporary operation rather than maximum current carrying capacity. Examples supported by the cited work include disposable or transient sensors, wearable patches, flexible NFC structures, electromagnetic shielding, battery and supercapacitor components, and neural or other implantable interfaces. In each case, designers must state whether the biological material is the support, the dielectric, a composite electrode or the conductor itself.
For a prototype, the most defensible route today is to choose a mycelium or bacterial-cellulose substrate, select a conductive phase appropriate to the required resistance, and design the assembly for separation of organic and nondegradable parts. Calling that result “copper-free” is accurate only if every copper-containing element has been removed and the remaining conductor and contacts are identified.
What would be needed for a true copper-free replacement
A credible replacement would need more than a promising conductivity measurement. It would require a reproducible biological or bio-derived conductor, controlled dimensions, low and stable contact resistance, patterning compatible with circuit manufacture, resistance to humidity and thermal cycling, adequate bending or fatigue life, and a supply process that can scale without contamination or large batch variation. Independent tests would need to compare those properties with the copper trace used for the same application.
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It would also need a complete life-cycle design: non-copper contacts and components, a way to join the conductor without copper solder or plating, and a verified route for reuse, material recovery or safe degradation. The mycelium, bacterial-cellulose and cable-bacteria studies establish useful building blocks, but none yet demonstrates that full system.
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