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FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek

Development of next generation smart packaging solutions for food industry

Alternative title: Utvikling av neste generasjons emballasjeløsninger for mat

Awarded: NOK 7.8 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

302243

Project Period:

2020 - 2025

Partner countries:

The short to midterm goal of the project is to develop, test and demonstrate smart packaging solutions for improved functionality of the food packaging. To address the complex challenge of food and plastic waste, this project aims to utilize nanotechnology-based solutions. Low-cost environment-friendly nanostructured surfaces have been developed in the project for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, with a great potential towards food safety applications. Similarly, optimized multilayer coating has been developed and demonstrated in the project using layer-by-layer assembly method for achieving excellent oxygen barrier of biopolymer-based film. Further improvements will enhance the commercial viability of these biobased environment-friendly materials. Furthermore, the antimicrobial and photothermal response of various nanoparticles have been studied in the project. The encouraging results achieved so far have the potential to unlock new opportunities for the problems related to food and plastic waste. More interesting results are expected in the near future.

Around 26 million tons of plastic waste is generated each year in EU. Similarly, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. The food waste is significantly high in the meat and fish products due to their high susceptibility of enzymatic, microbial and oxidative spoilage, which limits their shelf-life. The project aims to provide novel solutions for these two major societal challenges; plastic waste (from food packaging) and food waste. The goal of the project is to develop, test and demonstrate novel active and intelligent packaging solutions based on functional nanomaterials for improved functionality of the food packaging. In this project smart labels will be printed to achieve positive/negative differentiation of food grade plastics at the material sorting and recycling facilities. The novel sorting technology is expected to improve the sorting efficiency of rigid plastics, especially black plastics which are currently not sorted at the automated recycling facilities due to technological challenges. This will simultaneously result in improved recycling efficiencies and reuse of recycled materials for food packaging applications. Likewise, novel functional materials will be developed and incorporated in the packaging to achieve prolonged antimicrobial and antioxidant effect. This will result in improved food safety and shelf-life of highly perishable fish and meat products, which can significantly reduce waste from these products. In addition, the collaboration with industry partners will result in development of commercially viable solutions aligned with market demand and will lead to the commercial exploitation of the results produced in the project.

Funding scheme:

FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek