When you pass the supermarket, the baked bean can stirs up your desire to purchase. On the way home, make a phone call to your smart home. When you go home, the smart microwave oven is ready for you. Meals; if an elderly relative forgets to take medicine, the pill bottle will alert the health center. These are the imaginations of the future packaging. In this imagination, the packaging is no longer just to contain and protect the content. It also has additional features attached. It plays an active role in terms of product usage, convenience, and safety. Smart packaging is a general term, and it has various functions depending on the packaging product, such as food, drinks, drugs, household goods, and so on. Here are some examples of smart features that will appear on the packaging method now and in the future:
1. Maintain integrity and actively prevent food damage (ensure shelf life);
2. Improve product quality (such as appearance, taste, flavor, aroma, etc.)
3. React positively to changes in the product or packaging environment;
4. Help to open and explain the integrity of the seal;
5. Confirm the reliability of the product and prevent theft;
6. Exchange product information, product history, and status to users.
One important difference in functionality between smart packaging and other packaging is the positive response to emergencies. For example, canned foods, when exposed to ultraviolet radiation, will automatically release the pressure caused by high temperatures until they meet the specified internal pressure to avoid bursting the tank. Some smart packaging features have been commercially applied, and more smart packaging features are still under development.
The foam generator in a metal beer can is a very successful smart packaging example. In addition, CMB packaging technology (crown cork & seal) patented oxygen bar oxygen purification technology. This consists of a matrix polymer, such as PET, substances that purify/absorb oxygen, and catalysts. The oxygen purification material is a mixture of nylon polymer (MXD6) and 5% PET. The catalyst is a cobalt salt, which is added at a low concentration (less than 200 PPM) to cause the oxidation reaction of MXD6. The oxygen bar system remains active for two years. This system is used in oxygen-sensitive products such as beer, liquor, juice, and mayonnaise to provide protection during their shelf life. Rapid food systems using oxygen purification and antibacterial technology can greatly extend the shelf life of foods and reduce additives and preservatives to ensure food quality.
In smart packaging, the function switch of the package will be turned on and off as internal/external conditions change. And it can include functions such as customer and end-user communication products. A simple definition of smart packaging is "to give people feel and information packaging."
First, audibility and visibility
Consumer and social factors may be the driving force that drives us to adopt smart packaging in the future. Consumer demand for packaging information will mean that there must be further changes in the provision of information. Because more and more consumers need to understand what ingredients and components are in the product, how the product should be stored and used. For example, smart labels and prints will be able to communicate directly with consumers through the audio and visual information provided by thin film devices. It can react to touch gestures or other scanning or activation methods.
Sound and safe handling instructions on household and medicinal products will be used to tell consumers what to expect after the product is consumed—this information can be used directly in the recycling industry to help them separate the packaging materials from the waste. The intelligently packaged drug delivery system will program procedures to pass patient information to health care centers.
Another important requirement is the consumer's security guarantee. Especially for perishable foods. Although the current refrigerated foods and instant foods have been marked for safe use, they have not considered whether this product has changed during storage and transportation. If it is exposed to high temperatures, it may not have reached its shelf life and the food has deteriorated. In the future, bacterial reproduction and temperature-time based on physical, chemical, and enzymatic movements in foods in smart packaging can provide a clear and definitive explanation of food quality safety and shelf life.
For example, COX Technology has developed a color display card, which is attached to the outside of the packaging film as a small label. The barb behind the card runs through the packaging film. It monitors the freshness of seafood and provides damage to seafood. Generated gas volatilization channels.
In the United States, novel breathable polymer films, acrylic branched crystal polymers have been developed, and the packages can be used on both sides from 0 to 68 degrees. When the branched part is melted, the gas diffuses at an alarming rate, and by further improving the structure of the packaging and the material, the carbon dioxide content in the specific product is brought into a harmonious proportion.
The final packaging method is intelligent. Because it can provide ambient temperature, it automatically adjusts the ingress of oxygen and the emission of carbon dioxide through evaporation. This method, in the process of storage and distribution, can maintain an optimum environment for the product, thus continuing the freshness and delivering better quality products to customers.
Improving the convenience of smart packaging will be a value-added item because customers will be willing to pay more for lifestyle changes. For example, automatic heating and packaging of soups and coffees, and automatic cooling containers for beer and beverages have been developed for more than a decade. Although not very mature, they have entered the industrialized state. Currently, Crown Cork&seal and Tempra have cooperated to take the lead in the development of more mature automatic cooling tanks and have been successfully developed. The Crown/Tempra technology uses the heat required to evaporate the water vapor to produce a cooling effect. The water is sealed in a separately coated container in a beverage can and is closely linked to the calorie content of the beverage.
The consumer twists the bottom of the can and opens a valve that exposes the water to the desiccant in the vacuum chamber, causing evaporation of the water at room temperature. A 355 ml can of beverage is cooled to 16.7°C in 3 minutes. This level of refrigeration is The laboratory test has been completed and the sample is being tested by the customer.
Second, hot color technology
A sensor is placed on the automatic heating and automatic refrigeration container to inform consumers of the correct temperature, so that the packaging can be intelligent. The most common method is hot ink dots. In the United States, there is a kind of syrup filled with plastic containers. After microwave heating, the dots outside the container show the temperature of the syrup. There are many similar packaging, such as the label of a beer bottle, with a hot-based design that tells the consumer how cold the frozen beer in the refrigerator is.
Smart packaging enhances ease of use, including intelligent caps with quantified functionality, and controls the safe amount of the product when opened, such as medications, cleaning supplies, and other potentially hazardous materials. Some bottle caps can warn users of the number of open and open intervals. This type of bottle can be connected to a health care center through modern surgery for automatic tracking of drug use. If necessary, if the patient does not take medicine on time, it will remind the patient. There are also creams programmed with smart gels that stimulate drug absorption based on changes in skin properties, replacing traditional tablets.
Third, the degree of damage display
For consumers, it is equally important that the packaging be damaged. The technique of displaying whether it is damaged can be easily handled. For example, based on visible, changing film or colored gas that undergoes irreversible color change, will be more and more widely used in daily necessities packaging. A pressure sensitive polymer can be incorporated into a package so that the package color changes under certain pressure. The 'scars' of such bottles or jars will indicate that the container was attempted to open.
A recent DTI survey showed that in the United Kingdom in 1991, there were 90,964 incidents requiring hospital treatment related to packaging. People have focused their attention on the design and use of better materials and easy-to-open packaging to suit the opening ability of people of different ages. The development of low opening adhesion and automatic memory packaging based on shape memory alloys is expected. Therefore, the ease of packaging will become the most significant feature of the future packaging.
Despite environmental issues, consumers are generally confused and opposed to packaging, and are increasingly concerned about the amount of waste generated by packaging. However, more elaborate, attractive packaging growth is driven by consumers, but also to meet the convenience needs.
Finally, consumers may respond to smart packaging that lacks recyclability. Consumers will be distrustful of the technology they pay for, such as date stamps and visual displays on a food box. Which one consumers pay attention to. The reasons for these smart packages being rejected are as follows:
1. Extra pay - can it be accepted by consumers?
2. The unreliability of the display - when food is not safe, it shows safety, when the food is safe, it shows unsafe.
3. Food safety management issues - Packaging materials may infiltrate into foods, affecting food flavors.
4. Recycling and environmental issues.
Therefore, in the future, it is necessary to carry out publicity and education on the knowledge of smart operations in order to increase consumer awareness of packaging security. Make intelligent packaging form a chain from manufacturing, supply, and use advertising, thereby creating considerable benefits.
According to the latest Foresight report, "Material: Shaping Our Society." Future packaging will be seen as a product of a combination of intelligence and tradition, relying on smart systems to add value through the packaging supply chain. Therefore, smart materials used in packaging must be inexpensive (relative to the product being packaged), reliable, precise, renewable within the scope of use, environmentally friendly, and food-safe.
Fourth, intelligent packaging of natural materials
There are many perfect packaging materials in nature, such as bananas, eggs, and many smart substances and systems that control plants and biological functions. Learning to solve engineering problems (biology simulation) from the natural world is no longer a problem. In 1850, Joseph Paxton obtained the inspiration for the design of the London Crystal Palace from the study of Liu's structure of water lilies. At the Biomimicry Center at Reading University, researchers are studying expanded starches to find materials that can sustainably replace polystyrene. This material will be widely used in secondary packaging for consumer products. Another group is developing a polymer that controls the temperature of the leaf's respiratory temperature based on the simulation of the opening and closing of pine cones.
Other machine-manufacturers are examining how the helmet can be designed to improve its ability to protect the head by examining the strength characteristics of the stick shell and the woodpecker's skull.
The use of pop-up devices in the packaging and shipping of fragile items. Our development of biomaterials and research results will surely be applied to intelligent packaging, and the future of packaging will change with the development of intelligence.
Reproduced from: cpnic