Plasma coating protects wine in PET bottle
US-based company Artisan Wine launches new wines in 750ml PET bottles with an internal silicon oxide coating that eliminates oxygen penetration.
The coating process incorporates plasma-impulse chemical vapour deposition (PICVD) a technology in which bottles are placed in a vacuum chamber where gas lances enter the bottles and inject a mixture of oxygen and hexamethyl disiloxane. Microwave pulses then ignite these gases to create cold plasma that forms an ultra-thin coating of silicon oxide on the insides of the bottles.
Artisan Wine Co., which is based in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley, launched its new Painted Turtle Semillion/Chardonnay and Cabernet/Shiraz wines in 750-mL coated PET wine bottles from Ball Corp. (www.ball.com) in March 2008. The bottles feature the Plasmax internal silicon oxide (SiOx) barrier coating from KHS Corpoplast North America (www.valueaddedbottling.com) that protects the wine inside the bottle from oxygen penetration and is easily removed during the PET-recycling process.
The bottles include aluminum screw caps from G3 Enterprises (www.g3enterprises.com) and front and back pressure-sensitive labels from Tapp Technologies, Inc. (www.tapptech.com). The seven-color paper labels are flexographically printed on a 10-color press, which also applies a matte varnish to the labels and a spot gloss varnish onto the turtle icon on the labels. The paper selected for the labels incorporates wet-strength properties to resist water when the bottle is placed on ice. The two varieties of wine, which are bottled in different bottle styles, are being sold through the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).
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