Sun Chemical has announced a partnership deal with Archipelago Technology Group to develop coatings for paper-based packaging for use with Archipelago’s Powerdrop system, which takes an unusual approach to using inkjet for high-viscosity coatings.
I’ve already covered Powerdrop in more detail in 2024, but essentially it’s a large drum perforated with holes that act as nozzles. The fluid is pushed in from an external tank, and an air knife forces the fluid out through the nozzles with enough force to overcome any turbulence and land on the substrate without any waste or overspray. Crucially, there’s no contact with the substrate, so it can handle different shapes.
Guy Newcombe, managing director of Archipelago, told me at the time, “It’s much faster than piezoelectric, and we can have a much more viscous liquid, up to 2000 mpas. We can run from water viscosity up to 2000 with the same geometry. We jet hot-melt adhesives, UV paints, food flavorings, and agricultural chemicals with high or low coating weight and high or low viscosity. We can jet low- and high-viscosity fluids. And we can jet hot melt glue up to 160°C, as well as UV paint and PVA glue, which is interesting because there’s a lot of interest in coating paper packaging to make them waterproof to replace plastic packaging. We can jet things with 100 micron particles and metallic paint.”
Since then, Archipelago has been refining the technology for different applications. But of course this does depend on other companies developing the coatings. One of those applications is adding coatings to paper-based packaging for a more sustainable solution than using plastic. And this is where Sun Chemical comes in, with its first contribution to this partnership being BARV656: Vaporbloc DFC Hotfood, which has completed testing and validation and is now commercially available.
Pete Saunders, global director, Digital Businesses, Sun Chemical, says molded fiber packaging offers sustainability and the potential for a lower carbon footprint than many conventional packaging formats, adding: “But untreated cellulose lacks the necessary barrier properties to resist oil, water and gases. Traditional alternative paper-based packaging, on the other hand, relies on the addition of plastic layers, whether lamination or extrusion, making the resulting composite material more difficult to recycle. Archipelago’s Powerdrop technology solves this problem by applying a highly efficient, ultra-thin functional coating layer at high throughput and with very low levels of waste, creating a uniform, high-performance barrier layer for demanding packaging applications.”
This issue has been given more urgency by the EU’s Packaging and Paper Waste Regulation, which came into force in August of this year. The PPWR has been designed to enforce recyclability by grading packaging according to its recyclability, starting with the highest grade, A, and with the lower grades having limited market access and attracting higher fees under the EPR Extended Producer Responsibility scheme. This applies across all European member states and will inevitably also affect brands operating in other countries, including the UK, who want to do business within the EU.
Saunders says that the Powerdrop helps in this regard as it allows the total weight of the coating to be less than five percent of the packaging, qualifying as Grade A, adding: “Crucially, this means that the container remains a highly pure cellulose monomaterial that can be recycled through existing paper infrastructure without specialized sorting.”
Newcombe argues that it’s best to design barrier coatings into the fabric of molded fiber packaging from the outset, noting, “With the PPWR taking effect this August, the window for stopgap, heavily laminated packaging is rapidly closing. Our agreement with Sun Chemical allows us to deliver a complete, proven platform. We are giving the industry a practical tool to achieve high barrier performance while supporting packaging designs intended to meet evolving European recyclability requirements.”
You can find further details on both companies at sunchemical.com and archipelagotechnology.com.
