Fraunhofer FEP has helped boost food freshness with innovative packaging coating technology. Strategic collaboration with applied materials and biofilm helped bringing this key advancement to the market.
Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Electron Beam and Plasma Technology (Fraunhofer FEP) in Dresden has developed a method to coat plastic foils with a very thin barrier layer that keeps out humidity and oxygen, the main reason of food deterioration. In addition to extending freshness, the new coating is transparent, allowing the consumer to visually appraise the food.
The key technology that enables this innovation is a vacuum-based, roll-to-roll coating process that can coat several thousand square metres of foil in a single hour. The foil, which can be a common plastic like PET, polypropylene (PP) or polylactic acid (PLA) is coated with a very thin layer of a natural oxide, which hinders the diffusion of humidity or oxygen into the package.
This technology provides one of the best and most effective barriers against moisture for transparent foils in the packaging sector to date.
Nicolas Schiller, head of the business unit Coating of Flexible Products at the Fraunhofer FEP, said: “The roll-to-roll barrier coating is suitable for a wide spectrum of polymeric materials. This makes the technology applicable and affordable for a broad range of products.” The nanometer-thin coating also helps conserve resources, since the barrier can be a hundred times thinner than traditional layers while retaining the same barrier properties. In addition, the new technique eliminates chlorine, a chemistry traditionally used in the production of polymeric barriers.
Research on the plasma technology of the roll-to-roll coating method was funded by the Saxon State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport (SMWA) and by the German federal ministry of education and research (BMBF).