IN Brief:
- Archipelago's Powerdrop system will apply Sun Chemical barrier coatings to paper and moulded-fibre packaging.
- The first coating validated through the partnership is commercially available.
- The companies are targeting low coating weights while retaining the functional barriers required for food packaging.
Sun Chemical and Archipelago Technology Group have formed a partnership combining barrier-coating chemistry with non-contact application equipment for paper and moulded-fibre packaging, targeting food packs that need resistance to water, oil, grease, and gases without relying on heavy plastic laminations.
Sun Chemical will supply functional liquid coatings for use with Archipelago’s Powerdrop platform, which has been developed for both two-dimensional paper substrates and three-dimensional moulded-fibre containers. The two companies are aligning coating formulation with the machinery used to deposit it.
The first validated product from the collaboration, BARV656 VAPORBLOC DFC HOTFOOD, has completed testing and is commercially available. Heat-seal functionality can also be incorporated where the pack construction requires a closing surface as well as a protective barrier.
Barrier performance remains one of the principal constraints on wider use of fibre in food packaging. Untreated cellulose readily interacts with moisture and oils, while many foods also need a structure that limits gas transmission, grease migration, or loss of product quality during storage.
Conventional solutions can add polymer films, extrusion layers, laminates, or multiple coatings to obtain those properties. Each additional material can increase complexity at the converting stage and at end of life, particularly where different layers are difficult to separate during recycling.
Archipelago’s contribution is the Powerdrop application process. The Cambridge-based business specialises in non-contact coating systems, while Sun Chemical supplies inks, coatings, adhesives, and functional packaging materials. Their partnership treats deposition technology and coating chemistry as a combined production problem rather than independent product specifications.
The companies are targeting coating weights below 5% of the finished structure in relevant applications. Achieving useful barrier performance at relatively low material weight could allow a pack to retain a high cellulose content, although the complete structure still has to be validated against its product, filling process, shelf-life requirement, and intended recycling route.
Coating weight is also a production metric. A formulation that performs well as a thick laboratory layer can become commercially unattractive if it consumes excessive material, dries slowly, creates defects, or limits line speed. The application process therefore has to control coverage closely enough to provide the barrier without turning the coating itself into a new cost or throughput constraint.
Moulded fibre creates another difficulty because its three-dimensional surfaces are less uniform than a flat web. Non-contact deposition can avoid some of the mechanical limitations associated with rollers or other components that physically touch the substrate, while still requiring sufficient control to coat complex shapes consistently.
The partnership follows Sun Chemical’s expansion into a broader direct-food-contact ink range, although the engineering task here is different. Direct-food-contact printing addresses inks and coatings used on food-facing printed surfaces; the Archipelago collaboration is focused on functional barriers and the equipment used to apply them to fibre structures.
Both developments sit within a wider shift towards packaging structures that perform more functions with fewer or more compatible materials. Fibre-based formats are increasingly being asked to replace plastics in trays, bowls, cartons, and other packs while retaining the resistance to grease, moisture, oxygen, and heat that the original structures provided.
That requirement becomes harder when packs also need heat sealing or have to withstand hot food. Increasing the amount of barrier chemistry can solve one performance problem but weaken the argument for a simpler fibre structure, particularly where the added layer changes repulpability or other end-of-life characteristics.
Sun Chemical and Archipelago are therefore attempting to control barrier performance through both formulation and deposition. Lower coating weights reduce material use only if the application remains uniform enough to prevent pinholes, thin areas, or other defects that compromise the pack.
Industrial scale will expose those weaknesses quickly. Packaging converters have to run large areas of material repeatedly, while food producers need consistent seal, barrier, and handling performance from one batch of packs to the next. Small variations that are acceptable during development can become expensive when they appear across high-volume production.
The first validated coating gives the partnership a commercial starting point rather than a purely developmental platform. Wider adoption will depend on whether the combination can preserve barrier performance while running at the speeds, coating weights, and repeatability expected by converters producing fibre packaging in volume.
