Deadline: Year of 2022
Whether to extend a product’s shelf-life, protect the product from the environment, or even protect the environment from a product, barrier materials add significant value to a packaging solution. Barrier materials are either single or multi-layer materials critical to maintaining quality and safety standards, particularly in the areas of consumer goods and medical/pharmaceuticals. These materials can serve a wide array of applications including: moisture barrier; vapor barrier, such as oxygen or other gases; oil and grease barriers; and UV and light protection.
TechConnect’s client, a leader in consumer packaging, is interested in increasing sustainability of the barrier material for consumer packaging through either source materials or complete solutions. Sustainable barrier materials span a variety of solutions including:
- Bio-based ingredients,
- Fully recyclable solutions,
- Water-based biopolymers, and/or
- Biocomposites.
The goal of this sprint is to facilitate contact and interactions between the Sprint sponsor and active researchers or technology developers in this space. Submissions and novel concepts from individuals and organizations at all levels are invited, including the academia, research, commercial and government sectors, but all viable technology providers are invited to respond for potential commercial opportunities with the client.
Solvers submitting an entry should highlight key innovation areas in their submission that meet criteria including:
- Description of proposed novel material
- Description of material’s recyclability/compostability, as appropriate
- Anticipated barrier performance, compared to alternatives
- Technical maturity