Newsletters

Good Morning Packaging: Keeping pace with packaging around the world, Issue# 02, Vol. 5, 2010

12 January 2010

This year the bottle for the Taittinger Brut Millésimé 2000, a blend of 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir, was decorated by the American painter Robert Rauschenberg, well-known for his “Combine” works that integrate the aspects of painting and sculpture. The Rauschenberg Bottle, is encased in a moulded “shell” of DuPont Crastin PBT, and decorated using DuPont dye-sublimation technology – selected for its ability to accurately reproduce delicate artwork on complex shapes. The artwork created by Rauschenberg uses a largely chromatic, but a very subtle palette of colours, with very light and “faded-looking” tones of mauve, brown and yellow, together with large areas of dark grey and black. 3D-sublimation printing was the most effective way of reproducing these very delicate colours on such a complex shape. 3D-sublimation printing requires a material for the shell that resists the temperatures incurred during the sublimation process. Dye sublimation is a dye-transfer process. When the dyes are heated in this transfer process, they vaporize, and if they are in close proximity to a suitable substrate, such as a plastic or coating, the vapours penetrate the adjacent substrate by around 0.002 in. (0,005 mm) up to 0.25 in. (0,635 mm). The plastic substrate must be able to withstand temperatures of 280 to 375 ºF (138 to 190 ºC) necessary to vaporize the dye.

Baby Boomers, their Gen Y kids and all following generations are convinced that a daily dose of a functional beverage, energy or vitamin drink can keep them youthful. However the potency and effectiveness of functional beverages rely on the way in which ingredients are delivered. Deterioration of vitamins, herbs and other healthful ingredients starts from the moment they hit water, in other words from the moment a packaging for a ready-to-drink energy drink is filled in the factory. Vitamin C, for example, loses 80% of its potency after only 30 days. In 2009 various companies developed solutions for this problem. Among others the VIZcap, BeriCap’s Life Top, the Delo Vitamin Cap and the Cedevita cap, but the best in my opinion is the Activate-cap. Activate launched a line of functional beverages that features a custom-designed cap to keep vitamins and other healthful ingredients fresh until consumption. The vitamin drink consists of a 16 oz PET bottle filled with water and capped by a custom-made dispensing closure that stores 3 gr of dry ingredient. When the consumer twists the upper cavity of the cap clockwise, an internal blade within the closure turns and pierces a plastic membrane separating the powdered formula from the water. By cutting the sealed membrane, the ingredients are released into the beverage, which is then ready for consumption.

Looking at the many introductions of ‘new’ products in stand-up pouches this packaging format has gained worldwide popularity. The basic Doyen design consists of two flat sheets sealed together along their sides, with a “W” fold running along the bottom. When the pouch is filled, the “W” opens and provides a base on which the pouch can stand. The original Doyen design showed the top being sealed straight across, but subsequent modifications include fitments to allow the pouch to be re-closed after opening. That pouch design, including many variants, is the dominant style of the stand-up pouch. The S-Pouch Company in Taiwan went a step further. They made a tube as body and sealing not one but two gussets (one at the bottom and one at the top with the spout) into the tube, the pouch not only looks as a bottle but stands more perfect and stabile and doesn’t tip over when half emptied as most of the tri-angular tapered stand-up pouches do. This revolutionary design has more advantages as it can be filled, according to the designer, up to 90-97% of the pack size or in other words the same content offers a reduction in pouch size of up to 20%, resulting in 15-20% material reduction in comparison to the standard stand-up pouch. Furthermore in the regular stand-up pouch only ‘canoe’ style fitments can be used, while the S-Pouch, with its double gussets allows for cylindrical fitments (even the new PCO 1881), avoiding the sealing problems which come with ‘canoe’ style fitments.

This new redesigned barrier structured 20-litres jug for Chlorpyrifos 500 insecticide from A & C Packers Pty Ltd. of Australia, with built-in handles on two sides and a tamper-evident, mechanical closure is 30-percent more efficient for transport and storage. Usually full containers are shipped two-layers-high on a pallet which represents 640 liters of product for the steel drums, in contrast to the new jug shape which allows twenty jugs per layer, two high, adding up to 800 litres in the same space. The new jug also is reusable with a 5-year life cycle and recyclable as the resin from the recycled containers can be used to make drainage pipes. Standard HDPE containers require to be fluorinated. Fluorination is a chemical reaction that introduces fluorine into a compound. It prevents container panelling and distortion and reduces chemical permeation, weight loss, odour emission and flavour or fragrance loss. To bypass the additional fluorination step, A&C Packers developed a proprietary six-layer extrusion/blow-moulded HDPE container with the necessary barrier made of DuPont’s Selar polyamide, an amorphous nylon resin that needs no fluorination. Besides the special barrier construction, the container also offers a new 63-mm, Easy Pour “glug-free”, tamper-evident, wedge-seal neck design from Dorony Pty Ltd. An elegant solution to the glugging problem relying on the container design along with the position of the neck.

For exporting toothbrushes, a specialty laminate system was developed which included the top lidding material and the bottom thermoformable tray arrangement. The challenge was that once the two laminate systems are hermetically sealed to form the unique pack, the consumer does not fight with it to open and retrieve the toothbrush. Hence, the easy peel feature was provided to the laminate system apart from the traditional good print finish. The Paper Products Limited • India Phone: +91 22 2534 3691 • Fax: +91 22 2534 0599 E-mail: anil.talwar@pplpack.com website: www.pplpack.com