Nano polymer development could keep fizzy drinks fresher for longer

23 October 2013


A discovery at Rice University that aims to make vehicles that run on compressed natural gas more practical, also has the potential to prolong the shelf life of bottled beer and carbonated beverages, according to a report from the Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association.

The composite material was created at Rice University in Texas, USA, by lab chemist James Tour, who enhanced a polymer material to make it far more impermeable to pressurised gas and far lighter than the metal in tanks now used to contain the gas.

The material is also said to show promise for containing compressed natural gas and for food packaging.

By adding modified, single-atom-thick graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), the Rice lab made it “a thousand times harder for gas molecules to escape”, according to Tour, due to the even dispersion of the ribbons through the material.

The researchers acknowledged that a solid, two-dimensional sheet of graphene might be the perfect barrier to gas, but the production of graphene in such bulk quantities is not yet practical.

However graphene nanoribbons are already developed.

“The breakthrough ‘unzipping’ technique for turning multiwalled carbon nanotubes into GNRs has been licensed for industrial production,” the AIPIA report says.

“These are being produced in bulk, which should also make containers cheaper.

“The tiny amount of treated GNRs accounted for no more than 0.5 per cent of the composite’s weight.

“But the overlapping 200- to 300-nanometre-wide ribbons dispersed so well that they were nearly as effective as large-sheet graphene in containing gas molecules.”

The GNRs’ geometry is said to make them far better than graphene sheets for processing into composites.

Tour explains that the material could help to solve long-standing problems in food packaging: “It took years for scientists to come up with a plastic bottle for soda, until they figured out how to modify plastic to contain the carbon dioxide bubbles,” he says.

“And even now, bottled soda goes flat after a period of months. Beer has a bigger problem and, in some ways, it’s the reverse problem: oxygen molecules get in through plastic and make the beer go bad.”

Bottles that are effectively impermeable could lead to packaged beer that stays fresh on the shelf for far longer.

Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association



Privacy Policy
We have updated our privacy policy. In the latest update it explains what cookies are and how we use them on our site. To learn more about cookies and their benefits, please view our privacy policy. Please be aware that parts of this site will not function correctly if you disable cookies. By continuing to use this site, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with our privacy policy unless you have disabled them.