Bright IDEAS Award: Intelligent pigments and plastics

塑料包装是一个与许多产品相关的全球性行业，没有比食品，饮料和医疗包装更大的了。大多数食品和饮料以及大量的药品和医疗器械都是在改良气氛（MA）下密封的-通常是惰性的-以保持产品的状态。氧气不仅通过直接氧化而且通过促进好氧腐败微生物的生长来破坏这些产品。其他潜在的腐败分析物/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于太阳紫外线;所有这些都可能导致产品快速变质（例如食品，饮料和疫苗）。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，也没有任何现有技术可以廉价地改造现有包装，使其在包装完整性和产品质量方面自我诊断。因此，食物浪费是很严重的。该项目将开创塑料包装的新时代-智能诊断塑料-将全部或部分（作为补丁）纳入包装，并随时融入现有的塑料包装制造方法。除了改变MA包装中的QA（总计超过500亿单位pa）外，这项工作还将产生其他明显的产品，包括：（i）变质食品，指示保鲜膜，（ii）“在”内消费，指示冷藏，开封食品的包装，（iii）防篡改包装，（iv）不正确的冷藏包装。这种新方法有可能改变包装行业。

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.