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SYDNEY: Food and medicines will soon be communicating with you via their ‘smart’ packaging – electronic print and optical technology could be used with our hand-held devices such as phones.
U.S. industrial chemist Ross Lee presented a synopsis of current and future research into smart packaging at Neutrons and Food conference in Sydney this week.
“What we are doing is assimilating reports of the research that is going on and getting it out there,” said Lee, an associate at Packaging & Technology Integrated Solutions in Chesapeake City, Maryland.
Spray-on sensors
While some of the technologies are ‘blue sky’ concepts, others, such as medical packaging which uses a system of circuit breakers to send a signal to a nurse if a patient misses a dose, was at the clinical trial stage, Lee told Cosmos. “These are technologies which are around now.”
Current nanoscale techniques include putting sensors into packaging, and printing electronics and batteries onto packaging by spraying it with a thin film of carbon nanotube structures.
Also out there are optical scanning technologies, where your phone takes a photo of a coded image on a product or display, which can then lead you to a url that promotes the product or offers extras value through the web.
Your phone will be your grocery guide
Current applications for printable electronics range from wearable textiles to solar panels. Other applications that could hit the shelves within five to 10 years include a dye that degrades in contact with food pathogens, sending shoppers a signal that a product reached its used-by date.
Or, molecules with an encapsulated antimicrobial agent could be triggered as a “self-releasing preservative” said Lee.
“New technology has recently enabled printed electronics based on carbon nanotubes to become much cheaper,” he said. ”It’s not inconceivable you could go into a supermarket and your phone, based on your own profile, could guide you to the products on the shelves you should get or those you should avoid.”
