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New deco tech

Plenty of Packaging World readers remember Arnie Orloski, editor of this magazine before he retired a few years back.

One thing Arnie hated to do is provide coverage of packaging technologies when they were still in the pre-commercial stage. “Too many mad scientists out there,” he’d say. He thought it better to let the marketplace “endorse” a new technology on a commercial basis before writing about it.

I’m sure it’s imprudent to ignore the advice of a guy who’s been inducted into the Packaging Hall of Fame. But a couple of new package decorating technologies I’ve been reading about lately are so intriguing and have so much potential, I thought I’d sidestep Arnie’s rule for once and touch on them now even though they aren’t exactly commercial hits.

The first, from a startup out of Ireland called Ntera, is a part of that fascinating field known as printed electronics. Called NanoChromics display (NCD) technology, it’s an application of nanotechnology that makes it possible to mass produce electronic displays on a wide variety of packaging substrates at low cost and with minimal power requirements. Picture a package made of paper or plastic whose graphics, rather than being static images created by ink on a substrate, are dynamic and interactive displays. That’s what NCD technology aims to deliver.

According to Ntera, an NCD display can be printed with industry-standard screen printing, flexo, or ink-jet printing equipment. The technology is based on something called “electrochromism,” where materials change color when a charge is applied. Ntera refers to the new technology as an example of “printegration,” where a display, a sensor, and a charge-storing layer are integrated by way of successive layered printing steps.

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