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1-3 déc. 2025 Toulouse (France)
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KeynoteFrom Waste to Wave Encoding Circularity and Intelligence into Matter for Sustainable IoT
Prof. Gaetano Marrocco University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italia
The global expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has led to an unprecedented proliferation of connected devices, raising urgent questions about material sustainability, recyclability, and end-of-life management. A new paradigm in eco-electronics is therefore needed—one that combines high functional performance with circularity, biodegradability, and minimal environmental footprint. This talk presents a series of research activities addressing these challenges through novel materials, sustainable fabrication processes, and wireless architectures designed for low-impact connectivity. A first research line explores Laser-Induced Graphene (LIG) as a transformational manufacturing technique for wireless devices. By directly converting carbon-rich or polymeric substrates into conductive structures without chemical baths or metal deposition, LIG enables the realization of fully recyclable or biodegradable antennas and sensors, merging functionality with environmental responsibility. A second area investigates biodegradable and transient electronics, leveraging polylactic acid (PLA) and starch-based composites to create electronic systems that can dissolve or safely disintegrate after use. These platforms are being applied in biomedical monitoring, for instance in implantable or prosthetic systems that communicate physiological data during recovery and then vanish, avoiding surgical removal and long-term waste. Beyond materials, sustainability also concerns security and authenticity. We introduce graphene-based Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) that exploit the intrinsic imperfections of laser processing as analog signatures for eco-authentication. This approach simultaneously enhances product traceability and reduces the environmental impact of traditional anti-counterfeiting technologies. The same sustainable processes are extended to food-quality monitoring and smart packaging, where graphene-based sensors and antennas can be engraved directly on biodegradable films to detect gases, liquids, or ripening markers, thus supporting food-waste reduction and supply-chain optimization. Across these examples, the overarching vision is that sustainability and intelligence are no longer separate design objectives but co-evolving constraints. By transforming “waste into waves,” we can imagine an IoT ecosystem where each electronic function—sensing, communicating, authenticating—is encoded in materials that belong to nature’s own circular economy.
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Gaetano Marrocco - Gaetano Marrocco Laurea in Electronic Engineering and Ph.D. in Applied Electromagnetics from the University of L'Aquila, Italy, in 1994 and 1998, respectively. Researcher at the University of Roma Tor Vergata in 1994-2014. Associate Professor of Electromagnetics in 2013-2017. Guest Professor at the University of Paris-est Marne la Vallèe in 2015, and Full Professor at the University of Roma Tor Vergata since 2018. Since 2018 to 2024 he served as Director of the Medical Engineering School and currently is the Deputy Director of the Department of Civil engineering and Computer Science Engineering. The first phase of his research career was devoted to the modelling and designing structural broadband and ultra-wideband antennas for Satellite (ESA, ASI), Avionic and Naval (Leonardo) communications. Since 2003, he has been investigating sensor-oriented miniaturized antennas for Biomedical Engineering and Radiofrequency Identification (RFID), contributing to the move from the RF labelling of objects to the passive sensor networks in the Internet of Things era. He carried out pioneering research on bodycentric battery-less wireless sensors concerning textile RFID antennas, tattoo-like sensors (flexible and stretchable epidermal electronics), and radio-sensors embedded inside implantable prostheses. He served as Associate Editor for the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE Journal of Radiofrequency Identification and member of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Awards committee. Currently he is Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Flexible Electronics. Moreover, he is the chair of the Italian delegation URSI Commission D Electronics and Photonics. He was the chair of the Local Committee of the V European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP-2011), TPC chair of the 2012 IEEE-RFID TA in Nice, France, TPC track-chair of the 2016 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Int. Symposium, TPC track-chair of IEEE-RFID 2018 USA and General co-Chair of the IEEE Flexible, Printable Sensors an Systems (FLEPS) in Tampere (Finland) 2024. Prof. Marrocco is the director of the Pervasive Electromagnetics Lab (pervasive.ing.uniroma2.it) and the co-founder and president of the University spin-off RADIO6ENSE (www.radio6ense.com), which is active in the short-range electromagnetic sensing for the Industrial Internet of Things, Smart Manufacturing, Automotive BioEngineering, and Pharma. He is listed in the PLOS ranking of Top 2% Scientists Worldwide (source Univ. Stanford, 2021-25) and in the first three places on ScholarGPs for worldwide RFID impact 2024.
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