A Process for Printing Activity to Food Contact Surfaces

Perhaps the most critical safety function of food packaging is to prevent microbial recontamination of foods made shelf-stable by some processing method. Such protection is considered passive in that the packaging material simply provides a physical barrier to the reentry of microorganisms. However, it is within the capacity of packaging and other food-contact surfaces to play an ameliorating or active role in the life of a food. This effort seeks to commercialize a general technique for activating polymer surfaces. The technique substitutes active factors for pigments in polymers used for energy curable inks. The active factors are then printed to food contact surfaces using existing printing technology. Surface activity is deposited with the speed and accuracy of graphic printing. All activity is focused in the print layer which is only a few microns thick. Phase I of the proposed SBIR will lithographically print the FDA/EPA-approved antimicrobial silver zeolite to web-fed low density polyethylene. Commercial silver zeolite polymer blends are currently marketed as antimicrobial items. Therefore, Phase I seeks to optimize the new technology of active printing and use it to produce a competitively superior silver zeolite activated-polymer. This effort will establish working procedures for applying future active factors to polymers.