Recent R&D 100 Award and ICIS Innovation Award wins for CANVERA™ Polyolefin Dispersions from Dow Coating Materials (DCM, dowcoatingmaterials.com), a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, validate their fresh approach to can coatings. These industry accolades substantiate this novel technology as an effective, drop-in alternative to incumbent epoxy-based metal can coatings. CANVERA Dispersions offer progressive food and beverage brand owners, can makers and coatings formulators a long-term metal can packaging solution that addresses growing consumer interest in can coatings that exclude Bisphenol-A (BPA) and other materials of concern to consumers.
“CANVERA Polyolefin Dispersions are a market disruptor that helps make the food and beverage industry safer and more sustainable,” says Jonathan Mason, associate research director, Dow Coating Materials. “They allow us to use the same trusted chemistry on which we’ve relied for decades in flexible and rigid food packaging in the thin-film coatings that line metal cans. Now we can achieve a safety profile that regulators and consumers alike prefer while keeping canned foods and beverages flavorful and fresh.”
The technology recently received a 2016 R&D 100 Award in the Mechanical/Materials category, as well as a 2016 R&D 100 Special Recognition Silver Award as a Market Disruptor. Referred to as the “Oscars of Innovation,” the R&D 100 Awards honor products and technologies released in the last year that make a significant impact within the research and development community.
These honors came on the heels of CANVERA Dispersions winning the 2016 ICIS Best Product Innovation Award. The well-respected ICIS Innovation Awards recognize and reward innovative and sustainability-minded companies, products and individuals in the chemical industry.
CANVERA Dispersions are enabled through BLUEWAVE™ Technology, a proprietary process developed by the Dow Core R&D group. This process mechanically disperses polymers into water to form emulsions with performance attributes typically reserved for solvent-based systems. To create CANVERA Dispersions, the Dow Core R&D and DCM R&D teams collaborated to disperse polyolefins into water.
As water-based emulsions, CANVERA Dispersions offer coatings formulators the flexibility to meet direct food contact requirements and can makers the flexibility to spray-apply the coatings. The post-spray bake step melts the polyolefin coatings, providing excellent adhesion and corrosion protection.
Can makers also benefit from coatings based on CANVERA Dispersions, which offer a drop-in can lining solution that can maintain long-term process efficiencies. By leveraging existing infrastructure and application equipment, manufacturers do not require production downtime during conversion. CANVERA Dispersions may even increase productivity by contributing to lighter coating weights and increased line speeds through controlled spray application.
