Who wants ice cream soup? Me neither.

To solve this problem, researchers from Shanghai Ocean University have developed packaging material based on Polyvinyl Alcohol incorporated with Silica Aerogel.

There has been significant research to improve the heat resistance of conventional PET material. This new packaging comes as a breath of fresh air (or rather freezing one) after the food and beverage industry’s long-term reliance on PET packaging material. 

The thermal conductivity of the PVA film containing SA is very low (0.068 W/mK) as compared to PVA film (0.234 W/mK). 

To give you an example, air has a thermal conductivity of 0.024 W/mK. Comparing this with 0.068 Wm/K, we see that PVA-SA has a significantly low thermal conductivity.

This makes PVA-SA an ideal insulation packaging material for thermally protecting various food products. Because unless you’re craving fondue, a melted chocolate bar is just a sticky mess and yeah, I hate it too.

Beyond insulation, there are cellulose, glass, and smart packaging options that cut costs and improve sustainability.

You can explore them in this sustainability packaging kit my team has created. It brings different packaging trends all together so you can quickly see what’s trending and where the biggest opportunities lie.