Self-opening packaging unlocks the attention of brands

Sara Ver-Bruggen - 06 May 2010

Innventia, the Swedish R&D organisation for the pulp, paper and related industries, is commercialising a technology that can enable packaging to change shape.

A team within the organisation has developed a concept of a pack that unlocks and opens up like a flower. The prototype was developed to show how the firm's mechano-active material can be used in a product.

The approach is paying off, piquing the interest of companies in packaging, food and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries.

Over the coming months Innventia will work with some of the companies to develop concepts of products and packaging that use the materials, to alter their shape in response to stimuli including heat, moisture or electrical.

Senior researcher Hjalmar Granberg has been leading the development of mechano-active and also opto-active materials - which change colour - at Innventia.

Product enhancement

The company has focused on developing its opto-active materials for authentication and product enhancement. The materials can even be used in both a product and also its packaging. One idea could be to use the technology to create a temporary hair dye, promoted by a colour-changing pack (or element of it) employing the same core technology.

Says Granberg: 'We need to find visionaries in these industries, show them what is possible in order for them to use these materials. Companies don't respond to something called a "mechano-active material" but when you show them how it can be used in the self-opening package for instance, they are interested. Then they want to know how else it can be used.'

The potential for the materials extends beyond packaging to any paper-based products and media, as well as other substrates, and provides a new solution to packaging dilemmas. The idea for the self-opening demonstrator came from designing packaging for senior consumers and where conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis greatly impair manual dexterity. The package is placed in the oven and the heat unseals or 'unlocks' it.

The materials can be applied at several stages between paper production and final product, during the paper making process, printing and also converting.

'Depending on how the technology is used product development can take two months or up to one or two years', says Granberg.

+Plastic Electronics magazine provides exclusive, high-value content for the printed, plastic and organic electronics industry. To sign up for your copy immediately, contact publications@pira-international.com.