Bright IDEAS Award: Intelligent pigments and plastics

塑料包装是一个与许多产品相关的全球行业，其中最大的产品是食品、饮料和医疗包装。为了保持产品的状态，大多数食品和饮料以及大量的药品和医疗器械都被密封在修改过的气氛(MA)下--通常是惰性的。氧气不仅会直接氧化，还会促进好氧腐败微生物的生长，从而使这些产品变质。其他可能变质的分析物/操作参数包括：水蒸气(例如干燥食品和电子产品)、不适当的冷藏和暴露在太阳紫外线下；所有这些都可能导致产品迅速变质(例如在食品、饮料和疫苗中)。当许多食物变质时，通常会释放出可检测到的挥发性物质。这种包装没有100%的质量控制，也没有任何当前的技术可以廉价地改变当前的包装，使其在包装完整性和产品质量方面具有自我诊断能力。因此，食物浪费是非常严重的。该项目将产生一个塑料包装的新时代--智能、诊断塑料--它将全部部分(作为补丁)并入包装中，并很容易纳入现有的塑料包装制造方法中。除了在MA包装中改变质量保证(总计超过500亿单位/年)，这项工作将产生的其他明显产品包括：(I)表示保鲜膜的变质食品，(Ii)表示冷藏、开封食品的包装内食用，(Iii)篡改证据包装，(Iv)错误的冷藏包装。这一新方法具有改变包装行业的潜力。

Plastic packaging is a global industry associated with many products, none bigger than food, drink and medical packaging. Most food and drink and a great number of medicines and medical appliances are sealed under a modified atmosphere (MA) - usually inert - in order to preserve the state of the product. Oxygen spoils such products not only by direct oxidation but also by encouraging growth of aerobic spoilage microbes. Other potentially spoilage analytes/operational parameters include: water vapour (e.g. for dry foods and electronic goods), improper refrigeration and exposure to solar UV; all can lead to rapid product deterioration (e.g. in foods, drinks and vaccines). When many foods spoil detectable volatile species are often emitted. There is no 100% quality control for such packaging, nor any current technology that can inexpensively transform current packaging to rendered it self-diagnostic in terms of package integrity and product quality. As a consequence food waste is significant. This project will generate a new era of plastic packaging - smart, diagnostic plastics - which will be wholly of partly (as a patch) incorporated into the package and be readily incorporated into existing plastic packaging manufacture methods. In addition to transforming QA in MA packaging (total of over 50 billion units pa), other obvious products which will arise from this work include: (i) spoilt food indicating cling film, (ii) 'consume within' indicating packaging for refrigerated, OPENED food, (iii) tamper-evidence packaging, (iv) incorrect refrigeration packaging. This novel approach has the potential to transform the packaging industry.