Additive for flexible packaging to make food better, safer and longer.

It estimates that food loss and waste costs the global economy $936 billion a year and Nanox is helping to solve this problem using antimicrobial technology to apply mainly in food packaging. Nanox creates a technology platform that can decrease the food waste improving the food shelf-life. Depending on the food, Nanox's products can double the shelf life. NANOX develops, produces and commercializes silver based inorganic antimicrobials (safer and more efficient), which can be incorporated into a wide range of materials, making them free bacteria and fungi. The product needs to be added in the manufacturing process of the products, in other words, in the food packaging case it is necessary to add during the manufacturing process of the packaging. The main benefit for food packaging is to improve the food shelf life and decrease the food waste. We have a case in the fresh milk market where our product extended the fresh milk shelf life from 8 to 16 days. Nanox products have registered in FDA and EPA and available in masterbatch form.

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Pathogens (bacteria, fungus and virus) are becoming a potential threat to the health of human beings and environment worldwide. They widely exist in the environment, with characteristics of variety, spreading quickly and easily causing adverse reactions. In this work, an Ag-based material is used to be incorporated and functionalized in polycotton fabrics using pad-dry-cure method. This composite proved to be effective for inhibiting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, decreasing the number of replicates in 99.99% after an incubation period of 2 minutes. In addition, it caused 99.99% inhibition of the pathogens S. aureus, E. coli and C. albicans, preventing cross-infections and does not cause allergies or photoirritation processes, demonstrating the safety of its use.

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COVID-19, as the cause of a global pandemic, has resulted in lockdowns all over the world since early 2020. Both theoretical and experimental efforts are being made to find an effective treatment to suppress the virus, constituting the forefront of current global safety concerns and a significant burden on global economies. The development of innovative materials able to prevent the transmission, spread, and entry of COVID-19 pathogens into the human body is currently in the spotlight. The synthesis of these materials is, therefore, gaining momentum, as methods providing nontoxic and environmentally friendly procedures are in high demand. Here, a highly virucidal material constructed from SiO2-Ag composite immobilized in a polymeric matrix (ethyl vinyl acetate) is presented. The experimental results indicated that the as-fabricated samples exhibited high antibacterial activity towards Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) as well as towards SARS-CoV-2. Based on the present results and radical scavenger experiments, we propose a possible mechanism to explain the enhancement of the biocidal activity. In the presence of O2 and H2O, the plasmon-assisted surface mechanism is the major reaction channel generating reactive oxygen species (ROS). We believe that the present strategy based on the plasmonic effect would be a significant contribution to the design and preparation of efficient biocidal materials. This fundamental research is a precedent for the design and application of adequate technology to the next-generation of antiviral surfaces to combat SARS-CoV-2.

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