Application of Laser Technology in Food Packaging

The requirements for food packaging in the packaging industry are the highest and are closely related to people's daily lives. Therefore, people have always been highly concerned. With the continuous improvement of living standards, while people's spending power continues to grow, the requirements for packaging are constantly being strengthened. In fact, the packaging of food has a non-negligible role in the sales of food. After all, everyone likes to look beautiful and easy to use...

In the consumer goods industry, packaging has always been an important aspect of special attention, and especially food safety is the top priority of food packaging. But while paying attention to food safety and the appearance of beautiful packaging, people often overlook many details, such as ignoring people's feelings when they open food packaging. In the most commonly used sealing type packaging, problems often occur, and sometimes even cause minor injuries. For example, when opening a peanut or salad dressing package, the contents of the package can easily overflow, especially if some seals are tight or designed. Unreasonable packaging is the most prone to this condition. It is also difficult to control the strength of opening some food packaging because tears are made inadvertently, or tear lines are made mechanically, usually with great force.

Current advanced laser technology gives us a solution to the problem. The laser system can select a single thin film layer in the flexible package for marking. In doing so, it achieves the perfect tearing effect of the flexible packaging, and can maintain the integrity of the film, so that the outer film is intact and not damaged, so that we can effectively prevent the occurrence of problems such as visible light and moisture in the packaged goods.

Secondly, today's advanced laser systems are completely free to scramble in a freely combinable manner. For example, many of today's snack packaging uses a design style that is lined with the outline of printed patterns on the packaging. The advantages of the line system. When the packaging tape needs to have holes, the laser system can perform “ventilation preservation” perforation on the packaging. This is currently the world's leading technology, which can increase the shelf-life of the goods in the package by punching, or cater to the products through the microwave oven. The pressure on food packaging after heating. Now, the laser perforation line has been able to achieve the effect of tearing the entire package along the dotted line. Unlike mechanical tools such as spiral knives or punches, laser work does not require direct contact and only minimal wear and tear can provide the best possible processing.

Application of laser marking technology

Laser scribing is a technique that uses lasers to achieve "easy-to-open" effects on multilayer composite packaging materials. Traditional tools tend to draw lines too deep, resulting in damage to the composite layer of the product packaging; or the lines are too shallow, so that consumers need to spend a lot of effort to tear the package. Here I want everyone to be more or less annoyed by the opening up of food packaging that is "stubborn!"

Laser scribing is a more advanced and flexible technique. The laser scribing technology focuses the laser energy on the film layer that needs to be scribed without damaging the entire film. Because composite membranes such as PET, PP or PE have different absorption and emission carbon dioxide laser wavelength characteristics, when one layer of thin film absorbs laser energy and disappears, other thin film layers remain 100% intact. To any influence. On the other hand, aluminum foil or other metal-plated films act as a barrier to the laser from reaching other material layers. Therefore, the characteristics of these materials enable laser technology to accurately position and scribing the packaging material. At the same time, the tear line is clearly visible through the human eye, so tearing the package is a breeze for the consumer. In this regard, it is worth noting that the laser marking technology is a non-contact and non-abrasive process for food packaging, so it also ensures that the products in the packaging will not be damaged due to the packaging process, ensuring the stability of the product. With reliability.

Application of laser drilling technology

As we all know, the quality and shelf life of perishable foods depend on the balance of the air circulation in the product packaging and the humidity in the packaging. Therefore, in order to achieve sufficient holes in the package, the use of laser technology to make holes has become the first choice for perishable foods.

Take ROFIN, a leading company in the field of laser scribing and laser drilling technology, for example: ROFIN's processing equipment can use high-pulse and CO2 lasers to perform hole drilling on various film layers of packaging materials through ROFIN's With special technology, there is melting around each small hole, which can effectively prevent the expansion of the small hole and avoid the damage to the integrity of the package, and can also have good ventilation and moisturizing effects.

Current state-of-the-art laser equipment can provide various solutions with more product yields or process requirements. It can provide splitters with multiple focus heads to control the direction of punching, and the use of polygonal prisms to distribute the speed of light to multiple focus heads. Realize high speed scrolling. Now, the best flexible packaging climate management package has an aperture of between 60 and 300 microns. The arrangement of the holes can be changed from one line to the next and can be synchronized with the printing. Laser drilling technology is also suitable for packaging with pressure changes, such as food packaging that requires microwave heating. For some of the more rigid packaging materials, such as PE/PE composites, laser drilling technology can make perforation lines containing 5-50 holes per 1 cm, and can completely achieve the effect of tearing the package along the dotted line.

Advantages of using laser scribing technology for food packaging ●Only marking the selected film layer, other film layers are not affected ●The shape of the scribing can be freely selected ● Less loss and high reliability in the production process

Advantages of using laser drilling technology for food packaging ● Accurate control over the size of holes and the number of holes ● Fine holes can be made and edges of holes can be prevented from breaking ● High-density holes can be used to produce packages that are torn along broken lines ● Production Low loss and high reliability in the process

With the increase of people's spending power, better requirements are placed on the quality of consumer products. Humanized food packaging is easier for customers to accept, and it also plays a role in improving product sales. Laser technology in the food packaging field is now quite mature, and it certainly can occupy an important position in the future market.