ALD and VTT in Finland mentioned in report on the Global Packaging Coatings Market, 2015

Crazy day first a call on non-semi applications with a dear old friend and then multiple reports popping up on the same topic. Yeah I know I once owned a Citroen and since then I see them all the time. Anyhow, here is another non-semi ALD future where ALD and VTT in Finland mentioned in report on the Global Packaging Coatings Market, 2015. However a CAGR of 4.2% is not that much to hang in the christmas tree as we say in Sweden compared to many reports saying ALD growth is above CAGR 30%. But then again ALD can for sure grow at high speed within a large market!

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/qk7q2n/global_packaging) has announced the addition of the "Global Packaging Coatings Market 2015-2019" report to their offering.

The increase in consumer preference for eco-friendly products is an important trend being witnessed in the global packaging coatings market. The manufacturers of packaging coatings, which include beverage packaging and food packaging, and are developing new and eco-friendly coatings to comply with regulations and to meet the increasing demand for sustainable products that do not harm the ecosystem. 

This in turn is expected to propel the growth of the market during the forecast period. The VTT technical research center has developed technology for recyclable and eco-friendly packaging coatings solutions. These coatings help in the manufacture of thin, lightweight, fully recyclable, and air-tight packaging materials. They use the atomic layer deposition (ALD) method, which are helpful in food and pharmaceutical packaging as they have a good gas permeation resistance. Moreover, these recyclable coatings do not use barrier materials such as aluminum film, thereby using less raw materials compared to traditional packaging coatings materials.

According to the report, the global packaging coatings market to grow at a CAGR of 4.2% over the period 2014-2019. The growth of the global packaging industry is a major driving factor in the growth of the global packaging coatings market. The packaging industry is expected to grow by 2018. The growth will be characterized by the growing demand for packaging coatings from the packaging industry because of the increased demand for plastic packaging from the food and beverage industry.

Suppliers of raw materials determine the prices of raw materials, which in turn has a negative impact on the growth of the packaging market, thereby increasing the price of packaging coatings.

Here is an rather old press release form VTT on the topic :

The ALD thin coating considerably reduces the need for aluminium in packaging solutions

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed an environmentally-friendly packaging coating solution. Especially suitable for food and pharmaceutical packaging, the coating offers a new method for manufacturing fully recyclable, thin, light and air-tight packaging materials.

http://www.vttresearch.com/media/news/vtt-has-developed-a-fully-recyclable-coating-for-food-pharmaceuticals

ALD Encapsulation technologies for flexible electronics

Here is an overview on encapsulation technologies for flexible electronics covering the main technologies and players. So just scroll down to the interesting part about ALD sating the main OEMs:

• BENEQ
• Lotus
• Encapsulix
• Synos (Veeco)

From a market perspective tehr is a forecast from IDTechEx Barrier Layers for Flexible Electronics 2015-2025: Technologies, Markets, ForecastsRead more at: http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/barrier-layers-for-flexible-electronics-2015-2025-technologies-markets-forecasts-000409.asp

Barrier layer market forecasts in US$ million

Status of flexible encapsulation to enable flexible electronics

In 2020, flexible barrier manufacturing for flexible electronic devices such as displays will be a market worth more than US$184 million, according to IDTechEx Research. That equates to 3.8 million square meters of flexible barrier films for electronics.

Although multilayer approaches – usually organic and inorganic layers – have been the most popular solution for flexible encapsulation so far, there is significant development work with solutions based on single layer approaches such as flexible glass or atomic layer deposition (ALD) which could, in later years, capture part of the market. The table below, compiled by IDTechEx analysts shows some of the characteristics of flexible glass and ALD films as developers are looking to bring them to market.

[...]

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) present and future outlook/market share 

ALD is another flexible encapsulation technology receiving a lot of attention with several players currently developing solutions based on it. It seems like it is not a short-term solution, if it will ever be one as a stand-alone layer but ALD may be a solution in a multi-layer stack in combination with a sputtered or PECVD layer if it would be possible to find a good cost structure. Regarding the intrinsic properties of the material, ALD film deposited at low temperature (T<80 C) have a superior quality when tested at room temperature. A single ALD layer less-than 50 nm thick can perform better than thicker layers deposited by sputtering or PECVD.

However, the inherent stability of the films at higher temperature/humidity (e.g. 85C/85%RH) is a problem. If PE-CVD is used, ALD film stability improves, as well as for mixed oxides, but it is still an issue. A second problem comes with particles and substrates non-uniformity. Any defect may lead at an initial non-uniform nucleation that propagates into the growing film. Furthermore, loose particles on substrates may be partially covered, but because of the extreme thinness, the thin film does not have the mechanical strength to keep them in place under mechanical stress. Any mechanical stress leads to film fracture with consequent creation of an ingress path for moisture. That is why multilayer structures are necessary.

Deposition tools are in development from Lotus, Beneq, Encapsulix and others. Exploration at Samsung SDC with ALD films for TFE was very much advertised by Synos, but resulted in failure and any further evaluation was halted. ALD for barrier on foil has better results although there are doubts and hurdles in scaling up and reaching the deposition speed required for a cost effective process.

Polymer hybrid thin-film composites for food packaging and membrane filters

As reported by VTT: Juha Nikkola M.Sc.(Tech.), Senior Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, developed new hybrid materials in his doctoral research project for use in the manufacture and modification of thin-film composites. The project resulted in new materials suitable for instance for food packaging with enhanced diffusion barrier and for membrane filters with improved anti-fouling properties used in water purification. In the future, similar materials may find use in flexible OLED displays and in wall and ceiling panels.

The doctoral research project involved developing surface materials that decrease bacterial adhesion to the surface. Improved surface materials can help keep membrane filters or wall surfaces clean or improve the preservation of food.

Food spoilage can be delayed with a new type of cardboard package coated with a plastic incorporating the thin-film composite structure developed in the present project. Such diffusion barrier materials may also find use in flexible OLED displays in the electronics industry or in replacing thickly layered paint on wall and ceiling panels.

The doctoral research project involved studying and developing flexible thin-film composites using various coating techniques and studying the impact of the surface layer on the permeability and anti-fouling properties of the thin-film composite. The hybrid materials developed can be produced in roll-to-roll processing. The research focused on atmospheric plasma deposition, atomic layer deposition (ALD) and sol-gel deposition techniques.

Thin-film composites can be manufactured using a roll-to-roll process. The photo shows the VTT coating production line.

A hybrid material is simply a combination of two materials at the macro, micro or nano level. Hybrid material is typically a blend, multilayer or nanostructured material. For instance, multilayer structures manufactured using thin-film deposition techniques can be named as hybrid materials.

Thin-film composites usually consist of three layers with different functions. The support and core layers provide the mechanical properties such as strength and flexibility. The core layer may also have properties affecting the chemical durability, permeability or composition of the composite. The properties required of the skin layer may have to do with separation efficiency, diffusion barrier performance, roughness, surface energy or liquid or gas permeability.

Juha Nikkola will defend his doctoral dissertation at the Tampere University of Technology on 31 October 2014 at 12.00.

The thesis is available online at Polymer hybrid thin-film composites with tailored permeability and anti-fouling performance: http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/science/2014/S66.pdf

3 min pitch - Protective coatings for silver cultural heritage objects using ALD

Novel protective coatings for silver alloy cultural heritage objects using atomic layer deposited metal oxide barrier films. This is one of the video pitches from the 17 PhD students from around the world who have made it to the final of a competition that challenges them to present their research in only three minutes.

2014 U21 3MT® Finalist - Amy Elizabeth Marquardt. Amy is a finalist in the U21 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition. If you like her presentation, please vote for it here: http://www.u213mt.com/index.php. Voting ends October 20th.