Advances in Inline Vacuum Top Coating

Presented by Shahab Jahromi, Knowfort Technologies BV

Reactive evaporation of aluminum using an industrial ‘boat-type’ roll-to-roll metallizer offers a cost-effective way of producing transparent barrier layers. Aluminum oxide (AlOx) layers produced in this way are however brittle resulting barrier deterioration during downstream steps like direct printing and most importantly Retort & Sterilization in food processing. We have been working for some time now on the development of organic Topcoats, branded as Freshure®, which can be applied inline, i.e. one pumping, on top of AlOx. We have previously demonstrated that our First generation Freshure® Topcoat can boost the initial barrier and protect it upon direct printing and critical processes such as Retort & Sterilization. In this presentation we will introduce our Second generation Freshure® Topcoats with improved downstream performance characteristics. By modifying the nanostructure of the Topcoats, we were able to improve macroscopic properties in terms of adhesion and printability. The changes on nanoscale will be shown by Quantitative Nanomechanical Property Mapping using Atomic Force Microscopy (QNM-AFM). The effect on macroscopic scale will be demonstrated using standard printing tests.