Influence of Parameters of Screen Printing on Photoluminescence Properties of Nanophotonic Labels for Smart Packaging

Abstract

Smart packaging is becoming more popular on world market as a new type of packaging able to react to changes in a packaged product during storage and informs a customer about the safety of consumption of packaged food. This article investigates the main technological issues of the use of nanophotonic printing inks based on ZnO/SiO2 nanoparticles and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) for printing active elements of smart packaging on paper substrates, concerning material properties and parameters of screen printing. It is determined that the use of ink compositions with medium content of ZnO/SiO2 nanoparticles allows obtaining blue-green and blue shades of luminescence color of screen printed images by changing ink layer thickness on papers with different contents of optical brightness agents (OBAs). The minimum content of ZnO/SiO2 nanoparticles in the developed fluorescent inks leads to blue luminescence colors regardless the contents of OBAs of the papers and ink layer thickness. The luminescence intensity is directly proportional to ink layer thickness and partly depends on the content of OBAs in the selected paper. In order to fabricate nanophotonic elements of smart packaging with predetermined photoluminescence properties, the influence of investigated factors on photoluminescence properties of printed nanophotonic labels should be taken into account.