Is energy harvesting the future of smart packaging?

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University are leading the development of a ‘smart packaging’ system to monitor temperature fluctuations, moisture changes and pathogens in perishable food products during transportation.

Chanyong (Chase) Cao, research team leader, said about one-third of all food produced for human consumption gets lost or wasted. The packaging solution may reduce spoilage and increase food safety.

A central feature of the system is a small, self-powered monitoring device consisting of sensors and an energy harvester that uses desiccants for harnessing and storing ambient energy. The energy is generated from the vibrations of the food delivery truck.

The energy powers a monitoring system that provides food producers and transport staff with digital data about temperature, moisture and spoilage conditions of the packaged food.

To extend the serving time of the sensing system, the researchers developed a desiccant-based triboelectric nanogenerator (D-TENG), which is an energy-harvesting device that converts mechanical energy into electricity.

The team designed a paperboard-based honeycomb frame to store the desiccant materials, which also generate electricity as they bounce around inside the honeycomb.

While some modern transport companies already use sensors to record temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide, the traditional batteries used are costly, heavy and can contribute to environmental pollution. They also may not provide real-time data to detect food spoilage.

The team hasn’t yet addressed how to better cool perishable food in transit in this project, but they are able to identify when and what might go wrong.

The team is now assembling a functioning prototype and hopes to scale up production and marketing over the next five years.

Cao and the team are focusing on detecting and preventing food spoilage, but the technology may also be useful for shipping vaccines.

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