Possibly, but only as a future coating technology. A 2019 laboratory study showed that synthetic layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheets can be coated onto polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film to create a highly effective oxygen and water-vapour barrier. That is relevant to crisp packets, which need protection from oxygen and moisture. However, the experiment was performed on coated PET film—not on a commercial packet—and it did not demonstrate that a finished package can be recycled in an existing collection system.
What the 2019 study actually demonstrated
Researchers led by Jingfang Yu reported a high-gas-barrier coating made from synthetic layered double hydroxide nanosheets. The paper, published in Nature Communications on 11 June 2019, describes nanosheets dispersed in an aqueous amino-acid solution and deposited onto PET film with a bar-coating process. The material is sometimes described broadly as “synthetic clay”, but it is not a packet made entirely from clay. It is an inorganic coating applied to a polymer substrate.
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The distinction matters. Flexible food packaging usually combines a structural film with one or more barrier layers. A laboratory result on one coated film can show that a particular layer works under test conditions, but it cannot by itself establish that a complete packet can be manufactured at scale, filled on existing equipment, opened by consumers, or accepted by recycling facilities.
The authors wrote in their abstract that “Most importantly, these coated films are also transparent and mechanically robust, making them suitable for flexible food packing while also offering new recycling opportunities.” The phrase “offering new recycling opportunities” is the authors’ description of potential, not evidence that a recycling system already accepts the material. Read the paper in Nature Communications.
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Why crisp packets need a barrier layer
A crisp packet has to keep two unwanted exchanges under control: oxygen entering the package and water vapour moving through it. Oxygen can accelerate oxidation of fats, causing stale flavours. Moisture can destroy the crisp texture. The package also has to survive flexing, sealing, transport and handling without developing pinholes or cracks.
Many high-barrier flexible packages use a very thin metallised layer, commonly aluminium deposited onto a plastic film. Metallisation can provide strong gas and light protection, but a package made from several different materials may be difficult to sort, separate or reprocess. A transparent, non-metal coating on a recyclable polymer could, in principle, simplify the material structure. Whether it actually does so depends on the coating’s chemistry, thickness, adhesion, durability, food-contact status and behaviour in a real recycling process.
How the synthetic nanosheet coating blocks gases
LDH nanosheets have a plate-like shape with a high aspect ratio: they are very wide compared with their thickness. When many of these plates are dispersed through a coating, they force gas molecules to follow a longer, more tortuous path rather than moving directly through the polymer.
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This “tortuous path” mechanism is different from simply making the film thicker. The nanosheets act as obstacles inside the coating. A gas molecule must travel around one sheet, then another, increasing the effective distance it must cross. If the sheets are well dispersed and the coating remains continuous, oxygen and water vapour move much more slowly.
The study used an aqueous amino-acid solution to prepare a dispersion of high-aspect-ratio LDH nanosheets. The dispersion was then applied to PET by bar coating. That is significant because bar coating is a familiar laboratory and industrial-style technique, although a demonstration that a method can be bar-coated does not prove that it can meet the speed, uniformity and cost requirements of a packaging line.
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The reported barrier performance
The strongest evidence in the paper is the change in gas transmission measured for the authors’ coated PET test film. The film was 12 micrometres thick before the coating was applied.
| Property | Uncoated 12 μm PET | Coated PET | What the number means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxygen transmission rate | 133.5 cc·m−2·day−1 | Below the instrument detection limit of 0.005 cc·m−2·day−1 | The measured rate fell below the instrument’s detection threshold; it should not be reported as zero oxygen transmission. |
| Water-vapour transmission rate | 8.99 g·m−2·day−1 | 0.04 g·m−2·day−1 | A large reduction under the study’s test conditions. |
These are impressive changes for the tested film, particularly the oxygen result. They are not measurements of a retail crisp packet, and they do not predict the shelf life of a particular snack. Package performance also depends on seal quality, defects, coating coverage, flexing, humidity, temperature and the amount of film used.
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The paper also reported that the coated films remained transparent and mechanically robust in the authors’ evaluation. Transparency could help a package retain a clear appearance instead of the reflective look associated with metallised film. Mechanical robustness is essential because a barrier that works only before folding or handling would not be useful in production.
Why this could be relevant to recycling
The attraction is a possible change in package architecture. If a thin LDH coating can provide the required barrier while staying attached to a recyclable polymer film, manufacturers might avoid some multilayer combinations that are difficult to separate. The coating is inorganic, while PET remains the main structural substrate.
That is a design hypothesis, not a demonstrated recycling route. A recycling plant does not judge a package solely by whether its barrier layer is transparent or non-metallic. It must be able to identify the package, sort it, wash or process it, and produce an output that meets quality requirements. A coating can affect polymer density, melt behaviour, contamination levels, colour, ash content or the quality of recycled material.
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The 2019 work did not report a finished crisp packet entering a municipal collection system, being sorted, mechanically recycled and turned into a verified recycled product. It also did not establish that any current recycling stream accepts PET carrying this particular LDH coating.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchWhat the experiment did not prove
- It did not make a commercial crisp packet from synthetic clay.
- It did not replace the entire packet with an inorganic material; the coating was applied to PET.
- It did not demonstrate high-speed industrial production or long-term coating uniformity.
- It did not provide a complete cost comparison with aluminium vaporisation.
- It did not provide a full life-cycle assessment comparing energy, emissions, material use and end-of-life outcomes.
- It did not show that a finished package is accepted by an existing recycling collection or sorting system.
- It did not establish commercial availability of the coating.
Those limits are not minor qualifications. They define the difference between a promising materials result and a packaging product that can be bought, filled and recycled.
How it compares with metallised packaging
Metallised films remain an important reference point because they already provide strong barrier performance and are integrated into packaging supply chains. A fair comparison has to examine more than oxygen transmission.
- Oxygen barrier: The coated PET showed an oxygen transmission rate below 0.005 cc·m−2·day−1 in the reported test. The available study does not provide a directly comparable metallised-film measurement under the same conditions.
- Water-vapour barrier: The coated film reached 0.04 g·m−2·day−1. The paper does not establish a complete head-to-head water-vapour comparison with every metallised package format.
- Transparency: The authors reported transparent coated films, whereas metallised layers are typically reflective or opaque.
- Mechanical durability: The authors described their coated films as mechanically robust, but packet-level durability after repeated flexing, creasing and sealing still requires validation.
- Manufacturing compatibility: The study used bar coating. Compatibility with high-throughput coating, drying, slitting, printing and bag-making equipment remains an engineering question.
- Recycling: The concept is intended to create new recycling opportunities, but no current recycling-system acceptance was demonstrated.
- Food contact: The reported barrier results are not a food-contact or migration approval. Those assessments would be required for a commercial package.
- Cost and scale: The paper identifies scalability and cost-effectiveness compared with aluminium vaporisation as unresolved challenges.
On these axes, the nanosheet approach should be viewed as a candidate technology rather than a proven replacement. The available experiment supplies strong film-level barrier data, not a complete commercial comparison.
Manufacturing questions that still have to be solved
Uniform coating at production speed
A laboratory bar coater can produce a controlled layer on a small sample. A packaging line must coat wide rolls continuously, maintain a consistent nanosheet concentration and prevent streaks, pinholes or agglomerates. Even tiny uncoated regions can become weak points for gas or moisture transport.
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Adhesion and flex cracking
The coating must remain attached when the PET is wound into rolls, printed, folded, heat-sealed and handled. A plate-like filler can improve barrier performance while also creating brittleness if the formulation is not optimised. The authors reported mechanical robustness for their films, but that result does not cover every commercial converting operation.
Drying, solvent and energy demand
The nanosheets were dispersed in an aqueous amino-acid solution. Water-based processing can avoid some organic solvents, but industrial lines still need to remove water at speed. Drying energy, coating weight and line throughput all affect environmental and economic performance.
Cost of nanosheet production
The primary paper explicitly identifies cost-effectiveness as an unresolved challenge. Producing high-aspect-ratio nanosheets with consistent dimensions and dispersing them without defects must be economical against established metallisation and coating processes.
Integration with recycling equipment
Recyclers would need data on how the coated PET behaves during washing, grinding, melting and filtration. The relevant question is not only whether the packet can be collected, but whether the coating leaves a useful recycled output and whether it changes the process burden.
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The study’s use of the term “non-toxic” refers to the materials approach described by the authors; it is not a blanket regulatory approval for every package made with LDH nanosheets. A commercial application would need a formulation-specific assessment covering migration into food, intended food types, temperature and contact time, impurities, particle release and end-of-life handling.
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The authors declared no competing interests in the original paper. That disclosure is useful context, but it is not evidence of regulatory clearance, a complete safety assessment or commercial adoption. The paper and the PubMed record provide the publication and experimental context, not a market authorisation.
Is this technology commercially available?
The 2019 publication demonstrates a laboratory coating on PET. The sources describing that work do not establish that the material entered commercial production, that a brand launched a crisp packet using it, or that a packaging supplier sells a ready-to-use version. Commercial status therefore remains unresolved on the evidence available here.
That uncertainty is normal for an early materials result. Moving from a coated coupon to a package requires pilot-scale manufacturing, food-contact testing, accelerated shelf-life studies, drop and flex testing, printing and sealing trials, recycling trials, and an economic case. Each stage can reveal problems that are invisible in a small film sample.
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A convincing next-stage demonstration would need to connect the nanosheet coating to the complete package system. Useful evidence would include:
- A pilot or production-scale roll of coated PET made with a documented coating weight, line speed and defect rate.
- Barrier measurements after printing, laminating, sealing, folding and repeated flexing.
- Shelf-life data for an actual oxygen- and moisture-sensitive food, with test conditions stated.
- Food-contact and migration results for the final formulation, not only the laboratory dispersion.
- Mechanical recycling trials showing collection, sorting, washing, reprocessing and the quality of the recycled PET output.
- A transparent cost and life-cycle comparison with the metallised structure it is intended to replace.
- Clear statements from packaging converters and recyclers about which regions and collection systems can handle the finished material.
Bottom line for readers
Two-dimensional synthetic LDH sheets could help create a transparent, high-barrier coating for PET, and the 2019 study reported dramatic reductions in oxygen and water-vapour transmission on its test films. That makes the approach scientifically promising for flexible food packaging.
It is not yet proof of an easy-to-recycle crisp packet. The experiment coated PET film rather than manufacturing a finished packet, and it did not establish commercial scale, cost, food-contact approval or acceptance in an existing recycling stream. The sensible description is “a promising laboratory route that still needs industrial and recycling validation,” not “a recyclable crisp packet technology already on the market.”
For the original publication, see Yu and colleagues in Nature Communications. A contemporaneous explanation appeared in Chemistry World, and the bibliographic record is available through PubMed.
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