Nanotechnology ensures safety

The safety of packaging and packaged products against counterfeiting, smuggling and theft has gained in an important ally, with the help of nanotechnology. The startup Ciclopack has developed a system composed of bookmarks, specific reader and analysis and management software capable of providing many benefits to users.
In addition to increasing the safety of manufacturers and consumers, the system also assists circular economy activities, in addition to allowing the monitoring of logistics and strategic operations.
"Security is a critical point, it attracts the attention of stakeholders and is our first target market, but there are additional advantages very interesting for various market segments," explained Leonardo Roriz, creator of Ciclopack and also director of startups at the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp).
The market's concern is well founded. Roriz cited data from the National Forum to Combat Piracy (FNCP) that indicate losses of R$ 200 billion in Brazil in 2019, caused by fraud, counterfeiting and smuggling of products. "In the area of agricultural pesticides alone, these losses totaled R$ 7 billion last year," he said. "The amount recovered through police operations was only R$ 3 billion, it is necessary to invest more in security, bringing together public and private efforts.
"The situation has been getting worse in recent years. In 2014, these losses totaled R$ 100 billion. In five years, the value has doubled, it is a very accelerated pace, which follows a global trend. In the world, these losses are trilionarians.
"The amount lost in 2019 in the State of São Paulo would be enough to generate 90,000 new jobs; on a national scale, losses could be converted into investments, generating up to 2 million new jobs," he said.
Aware of the problem, Roriz has set up a team to study possible ways to help control the circulation of products. After a year and a half of studies, with the support of the Senai units of São Bernardo do Campo-SP and São Caetano do Sul-SP, the Ciclopack system emerged.
"We have been working for more than three years and we are about to close a contract with a large beverage company," he said.
The heart of the system lies in the domain of nanotechnology, which provides the manufacture of tiny particles, in nanoscale, which can be added to paints, plastic materials and papers. "We have the options of placing these markers in the coatings or in the mass of the parts, this option very suitable for plastic parts or films," he explained.
Each marker is developed for each customer (or for each of its products, if desired), exclusively. Its identification requires a specialized reader, also developed by the startup exclusively. "The reader is portable, uses the spectrophotometry technique in the ultraviolet range, and reads in a few seconds," Roriz said. The reader is designed for this.
According to the entrepreneur, the average concentration of markers in objects is in the range of 50 to 100 ppm, very low. "You can't fake the marker and you can't easily identify it without our reader," he said.
The cost of the system therefore depends on the mass of material you want to select. "We calculated the average cost of R$ 0.10 to R$ 0.60 per treated part or packaging; the portable UV reader costs R$ 10,000, but can be sold or transferred in a compost, depending on the negotiation", roriz stressed.
Once marked, the material will forever load the identifying particles. Even after recycling the plastic parts, the markers will remain present, but in a concentration lower than normal, if unmarked materials are mixed. The system detects this quantitative reduction of the marker.
This stay gives security to customers, who can verify the authenticity of their products at any time. "In the case of food packaging, marked films can guarantee the quality and also the origin of the packaged material, an important feature for some markets that veto the import of items such as soybeans and meat produced in the Amazon, for example," he said.
The current control system, by means of QR code, widely used in organic foods, does not guarantee the safety of products and packaging. "The QR code can be cloned with some ease," he said.