Materials Testing in Packaging

Materials testing and materials engineering is a critical service in the packaging industry

In keeping with our mission to bring high level technology to real life problems for all engineering materials in all industry sectors, the packaging industry presents a commercial space where we can articulate this mission and provide value.  All packaging makes use of diverse material properties.  Glass bottle provide a sterile volume for beverages to be stored and sold.  Glass bottles require labels and closures.  The labels require a good adhesive so that they don’t come off during the bottling process and also the logistics process.  The closures are usually a formed aluminium component and we have done a lot of work on optimisation of closures to prevent leakage of the bottle.

Other packaging methods include a polymer sack encased in a box with an opener. All these materials are non metallic, advanced materials and we see failures of these packaging systems and are able to help solve the problem.  Then we can also consider tins for fruit or vegetables or any other product.  The tin has an internal lacquer which assists with the sterility of the can.  However, if there are faults in the lacquer then the tin can corrode contaminating the product which means loss of product which is hugely devastating for the manufacturer.  Faults can exist in the can material itself.  Likewise we see vast number of plastic packaging for food and beverage products, there are a number of different polymeric materials that are used to create these bottles.  In addition, many companies wish to make use of compostable polymers so that when the bottle is discarded then it is easier on the environment.  We expect to see huge changes in polymer packaging and One Eighty is ideally poised to assist with this work.

Our offering is unique and speaks directly to the packaging industry where a spectrum of engineering materials are used and relied upon to deliver the products to the end user which is the consumer.

Our expertise in this field is within our consulting engineering team: Lize-Mari Britz has a MSc in materials engineering and her thesis was on the development of compostable polymers.  Kim Jackson has an MSc in chemistry and Lize Greyling a PhD in chemistry.  Marcelle De Waal has a BSc in Engineering and Janet Cotton has a PhD in Materials Engineering.  This dynamic team of engineers and scientists are more than capable to solve any problem that could emerge in the packaging industry.