Influence of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) on modern society is dramatic. Its estimated that 2.5 billion LCDs are approaching their end of life and LCDs are the fastest growing waste in the European Union. With increasing concerns for our fragile environment, legislative measures are in place to reduce electronic waste sent to landfill or incineration, as such recycling of LCDs is now a global concern.

By adopting a holistic approach to LCD utilization significant value can be added to this waste. As well as demonstrating that liquid carbon dioxide is efficient at extracting high purity liquid crystals from defunct LCDs, low value polymers such as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) from polarizers can also be obtained. By heating the recovered PVA in water (gelatinization), cooling (retrogradation) and dehydration with ethanol, its possible to produce high surface area structured mesoporous materials. Addition of iodine to virgin PVA is essential in changing the micro-structure of PVA and thereby allowing expansion to take place. Use of recovered PVA required no additional iodine, producing expanded materials with high surface areas (95.0 m2 g-1) and total pore volumes (0.56 cm3 g–1). These materials may find use as tissue scaffolds, due to the high surface area and compatibility with the human body. The antimicrobial properties of these materials were enhanced by the simple reaction of silver nitrate with the PVA/iodine complex to form silver nanoparticles encapsulated within the polymer matrix. These materials demonstrated excellent antimicrobial properties against both Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.