NanoPack has introduced Bairicade XT, a water-based coating for films used in processed food packaging, that uses 50% less water than previous coatings.
The company says its advances in chemistry allow Bairicade XT to provide a clear, ultra-thin oxygen barrier coating, requiring less drying and shorter ovens, and allowing press speeds to be “greatly increased”.
Offering extended shelf-life for products such as snacks, nuts, seeds, seasonings, confectionery, coffee and tea packages, Bairicade XT can reduce costs and enable coating and printing in-line on high-speed flexographic and rotogravure printing processes.
“With our previous barrier products, the large amount of water put down in the coating process limited NanoPack’s applications to mostly rotogravure presses, which can have long ovens between cylinders,” explains NanoPack president and CEO Howard Kravitz.
“We have improved the coating’s efficiency by increasing the total percent solids in Bairicade XT, while reducing the dry weight needed to achieve the same barrier,” he says. “This has allowed us to go thinner, and to put down about half of the total amount wet.”
Only a fraction of a micron thick, the Bairicade XT coating is created by evenly dispersing clay platelets in a resin, which then stack up like a tightly constructed brick wall. Oxygen is blocked as a result, thus greatly extending shelf life for packaged foods.
The new coating also provides a barrier to most organic volatiles, providing excellent protection for flavour and aroma, as well as shielding the inks and adhesives in those laminations.
The new coating has been approved for indirect food contact by the US Food and Drug Administration and petitions for Health Canada approval have been filed.
Fred Levitt, Pennsylvania-based NanoPack’s senior vice president sales & marketing, adds: “We believe converters will welcome the news that their flexo presses can now run Bairicade XT. In addition to the improved line speeds and lower total costs, this provides a path toward achieving improved sustainability in the packaging – clearly a goal of our industry worldwide.”
NanoPack Bairicade XT
