The four-year research project aims to make Europe a global leader in communicative packaging technology
August 2007
By Joanne Hunter
Big-budget research is giving a massive push to the development of "show and tell" communicative technologies such as sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID). Among the goals is to put paper and board at the top of the packaging material league table and make Europe a global leader in sustainable one- and two-way communicative packaging.
The SustainPack project is vaunted as "the biggest and most important packaging research project" to ever be undertaken. The four-year mammoth task is due to end June 2008. Around half of the Euro 36 million ($49 million) budget draws on money earmarked for European Union's Sixth Framework Research Program.
Its aim is to deliver demonstrable proof of the technical and commercial viability of new technologies for communicative packaging and display. This is one topic area of a total of six SustainPack sub-projects. Other units are assessing market needs - and society's wants - for sensor and RFID systems and producing cellulose- and mineral-based nanostructures. Work is also continuing on renewable composite films incorporating fiber materials and renewable plastics to compete with synthetic polymers and on coating and printing technologies to improve barrier properties.
Swedish research institute Acreo, of Norrköping, specializes in refining research into viable products based on electronics and photonics. It is working on organic and printed electronics research with Linköping University, which is also focused on bio electronics, interfacing printed electronics with biological tissue, e.g. for controlling cell growth. This research is in an early explorative phase. Today, there are few consumer personal care and healthcare products such as the skin patches launched by Power Paper.
Sensors and bio-electronics have traveled along separate and converging paths to arrive on the scene, says Acreo's printed electronics senior scientist, Mats Robertsson. Both are market-driven customer applications and based on the same electrochromic/electrochemical (EC) technology platform. The sustainable and harmless basis on which EC operates is crucial to future customer and consumer acceptability.
Acreo's EC displays are not emitting light; they are changing color due to light absorption at different light wavelengths. This so-called electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon and electrical phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to an electric current passed through it or to a strong electric field. Notably, this is distinct from light emission, which results from heat (incandescence) or the action of chemicals (chemoluminescence).
The common technology of sensors and bio-electronics combines transistors, switches and displays. Reversible switching of the electro chemical component makes possible printed electrochromic displays for non-packaging uses as well as for RFID tagging for track-and-trace and brand authentication purposes. RFID labels at crate and pallet level are increasingly familiar in retail supply chains. The European pharmaceuticals industry standards recommend RFID at item level as well as two-dimensional electronic barcodes.
Printed electronics is predicted to grow 100% per year between 2004-2014 and Robertsson says developers of the technology need a set of simple, early standards. Analysis of global packaging market trends shows 3.5% annual growth to 2014. By 2016, one trillion RFID tags could be in use.
Acreo researchers see the importance of ultra low cost non-silicon-based loggers for temperature and relative humidity (RH). It was at a SustainPack mid-term news round-up event in May 2007 in the Netherlands that Acreo et al delivered their individual progress reports. Project team leaders who normally work separately were under the same roof to hear one of their number reveal that retailers are skeptical and "have a wait and see attitude". In the pan-European study into attitudes towards communicative packaging, 80% of retailers questioned said no to sensors on consumer packaging. However, 100% do want sensor technology for themselves and all want sustainable sensors -- but at no extra cost. A printed organic electronics temperature and RH logger costing Euro 0.01-1.00 would be one less obstacle to the gaining of market acceptance.
It is still early days for communicative packaging, says the study leader Soren Ostergaard, head of packaging at the Danish Technological Institute. When looking at the willingness to pay (WTP), at this stage it is important to note historical precedents of "new" technologies such as the Internet. Did we see back in 1985 the potential of the Internet to take over our everyday lives? It begs the question: how can you measure the value of communicative technologies and, for that matter, of the Internet?
Back to the here and now, the reality is that printed battery research goes on and already has broken through with the first printed organic electronic circuit.
There is the accuracy, memory size, on and off switch and readout functionality to produce shelf display labels and smart product labels with display, push button and simple logics systems that do not interfere with a product's sustainable credentials.
According to Robertsson, printing machinery at Acreo can, by the novel "dry-phase patterning" (DPP) method, already produce metal patterns suitable for RFID antennae and EAS tags at extremely low cost and at fast speeds - up to 150m/min (6,000 m2/hr) on single layer or laminates from thin structures of up to 50 microns.
Market acceptance
Printed electronics is out there in the marketplace. The Duracell disposable battery tester label from Avery Dennison combines printed electronics and laminating, which sells in billions for a few cents each. It consists of a thermo-chromic display on a screen-printed thick film resistor circuit with screen-printed conductive silver interconnects.
A printed polymer PolyIC tag offers a self-adjusting "use before" date label at below Euro 0.03. KSW Microtec and Infratab smart active labels combine printed batteries, electro chromic display and antennae. The electro chromic displays are sold in millions at about Euro 0.05/active cm2. The price could drop to Euro 0.05/active cm2 if sales go up to "tens of millions", predicts industry analyst IDTechEx.
Pharmaceutical and secure courier packaging which launched "the first paperboard computer" by Cypak became a reality in 2004. But waiting in the wings is Intellipak that will see "electronics everywhere". The PacProject concept envisages a cornflakes box with electronically generated product information and on-pack games complete with press button keys, display, logics, battery and speaker.
It is also possible to produce thermochromic displays - heat-altered images - on paper substrates.
Stora Enso has developed new electrical delamination technology for opening packages. Known as controlled delamination materials (CDM), two attached packages or parts of packages can be made to easily separate using electricity. The technology allows the easy opening of consumer packages, and in distribution solutions CDM could cut down the use of material and improve in-store logistics. In shelf-ready packaging it could be used to make life easier and the job quicker for supermarket staff moving boxed units of stock from back store to shelf, for example.
Power Paper's smart skin patches use printed battery technology to enhance the effect of active cosmetic ingredients. Cathode and anode ink mixes produce energy cells for printing on to any surface. The resulting circuit is highly elastic and flexible and will perform best at skin temperature and in humid conditions. The patches contain no hazardous materials and can be mass-produced at low cost. Strong IP (intellectual property) protection results from the ease of customizing shape and specifications.
"Printed electronics has come to stay," says Robertsson. But, he cautions, "It will take some years before this area will take off."
The continued predominance of paper in advertising has received a boost from Swedish forestry industry researchers working on prototypes of paper products designed to communicate with computers by combining paper with printed graphic codes and electronically conductive, pressure sensitive ink.
When the paper "buttons" are touched, sound plays out through printed speakers. A natural target for the technology is high-impact point-of-purchase promotional displays.
The Paper Four project includes scientists from materials physics, media and communication science, and electronics. It is collaborating with the paper industry in the mid-Sweden region to develop an "entirely new" paper-based product platform for marketing products and services.
Joanne Hunter is a freelance journalist based in Brussels, Belgium
