Revolutionary research earns university top food and drink industry award

Monday 23 November 2009

A project with the potential to revolutionise the food and drink packaging industry has earned Nottingham Trent University's School of Science and Technology the title of Food and Drink iNet Innovation Champion 2009. The development of an innovative packaging material to eliminate leaching from bottled beverages as well as the contamination of food products, was also recognised as the winner of the CenFRA Award for 'Most Innovative Research Project'.

Using their expertise in nanotechnology, scientists at Nottingham Trent University have been able to adapt existing manufacturing techniques to overcome problems faced by the packaging industry. The leaching, or escaping, of gases from within bottled beverages is one such problem and has been solved by using nanofillers to enhance plastic packaging materials - by no more than just a few nanometers (one millionth of a millimetre). Using this nanoscopic technique doesn't affect the appearance of the plastic packaging and eliminates the need to use heavier materials such as glass. This has the potential to save huge amounts of energy required for the processing and transporting of bottled beverages.

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