Stora Enso is close to commercialising an electrical delamination technology which it says will see packaging items - ranging from stacks of beverage cans to corrugated transit packs - printed with low-cost conductive inks and glued using special adhesives to enable faster and easier opening using a minute electrical current.
Lars Sandberg, package design manager, Stora Enso Consumer Boards, who heads the company's Controlled Delamination Materials (CDM) technology project, explains: “The project was driven mainly by retailer pressure for more easily openable transit packaging. We have worked with top research institutes to perfect ways of printing lines of conductive inks onto a wide range of packs. With sufficient electrical current, for instance from the consumer pressing together a “switch” comprising two facing conductive surfaces, the special adhesives delaminate and the pack effectively opens itself.”
To date researchers have focussed on three CDM pack/package types - those requiring no secondary protection - for instance stacks of cans simply glued together, ones with limited protection - typically with an upper and lower protective board layer easily detachable in store, and those with strong protection - e.g. corrugated transit packs which would delaminate once on shelf, either via user pressure or contact with a thin conductive film on the shelf surface.
Sandberg adds: “This technology is potentially low cost. We have used inexpensive carbon inks.” In future Stora hopes low-cost batteries could be incorporated to further ease opening. It expects to launch pilots next year, with the first commercial applications predicted for early 2008.
Alongside easing opening of “traditionally difficult” packs (such as an aluminium bevcan, via a push on a small circle on the lid breaking the seal using a printed battery), Stora emphasises CDM technology could make packs more interactive. Sandberg enthuses: “Imagine a perfume pack that opens out like a flower thanks to the multiple seams delaminating simultaneously.”
Among many other applications envisaged are detergent containers with two or more active ingredients in separate compartments that mix only on activation, blister packs that spring open after delamination at the check-out and multi-packs featuring minimal “linking” corrugated components.
Stora will open a CDM centre at its Karlstad facility in Sweden in November, and is already talking to several brand owners.
