Liberty Intercept Blog

Aren’t all anti-corrosion packaging materials the same?

No. Barrier protection products work in vastly different ways. The Intercept Technology line of products protects in two ways. First, they act as a moisture barrier. Second, Intercept reacts with and permanently neutralizes corrosive gases to form a corrosive gas barrier. This dual form of protection eliminates the two elements needed to form atmospheric corrosion. Intercept’s mechanism for protection is sacrificial, therefore, it won’t contaminate the product it’s protecting. The typical “waterproof” or vapor barrier bag/shroud concept is to attempt to keep the atmosphere and/or relative humidity from the protected product; whereas the emitting protection products, packaging and canisters, will surround the product with a volatile vapor. More...

Are desiccants needed with Intercept products?

Yes and no. If there are no large voids in the package, then the Intercept will react with the corrosive gases within the package and eliminate the potential danger without desiccating. However, if there are large voids that don’t allow the Intercept material to be close to some areas, then it would be best to utilize desiccants, making sure that the desiccants are not directly touching metals. Please consult with us for your recommended usage.

     In professional basketball there is an adage that two great players are good but a “big three” is needed to win championships. To apply this analogy to manufacturing, the “Big Three” can be deemed as mechanical, electronics, and optics, all functioning efficiently together for the final product to work as designed like a championship basketball team. Point of purchase equipment, bank machines, scanning equipment, inspection equipment, and robotics are all tools and equipment containing the “Big Three”.

In 1986 Californians voted into law Proposition 65, also known as The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, the purpose of which was to protect the people of California from exposure, via drinking water and consumer products, to toxic substances which have been linked to cancer or birth defects. The act gives authority to California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to maintain a list of chemicals shown by the FDA or similar national organizations to be carcinogenic or cause birth defects. Any company found to be dumping any of these substances into drinking water sources can be fined and required to discontinue the dumping. The act also states that any company which exposes consumers to significant amounts of these chemicals via their products must provide a warning on the product or in the store. Failure to comply with the necessary warning means the company can be sued by state or city government attorneys or private attorneys given proper notice to the company and the Attorney General.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines the concept of waste minimization as follows: the use of source reduction and/or environmentally sound recycling methods prior to energy recovery, treatment, or disposal of wastes.

This paper from Waste Management’s Insight Section called “Manufacturing & Industrial” Waste Minimization” contains a wealth of information on the subject. Because the Intercept Technology packaging material influences many industries and processes, we at Liberty Packaging are required to have knowledge in many areas. Water and water vapor mitigation, corrosion protection, electro-static discharge, insect nesting, mold and mildew, worldwide atmospheres, materials cleanliness, and general packaging concepts are just some of the matters that concern our customers, in addition to waste minimization and reduction.

Here are some of the questions we have received and answered most recently:

1. Can I have Intercept in pre-made shrouds/bags? Yes. In addition to our standard on-shelf sizes, Intercept Packaging material can be custom converted to best fit whatever size you need.

2. Does Intercept fit into a reusable packaging program? Absolutely. In fact, it is the best packaging material to choose and a reusable program can be accomplished by choosing Intercept flexible films or fabrics and/or rigid trays, totes and lids.

The movie, in 3D, was visually stunning  and the extra dimension added layers to the CGI of Mars. I was so immersed that I only noticed the 3D at certain heightened moments, one in particular when snow was falling in front of onlookers on earth. I was fully engrossed.  

I read reviews of “The Martian” where some people expressed disappointment that the movie was a departure from the book. Considering the volume of twists and turns (along with explanations of why certain things were tough on Mars and how Watney, the main character played by Matt Damon, solved the problems) it would have been impossible to actually fit all of them in with satisfactory explanations or narration.

Galvanic corrosion is a type of corrosion which occurs when two different metals are in contact with each other and an electrolyte. Different metals will have different electric potentials when connected in this way. This difference creates an electric current through the electrolyte. In fact, the action of galvanic corrosion is the principle with which batteries are made. Of course this is also the reason batteries have a shelf life. The action of this circuit degrades whichever metal has a lower electric potential. This is described as being less noble, whereas the metal with the higher potential is more noble. The degradation of the less noble metal eventually gets to the point that the circuit is broken by the oxides and salts created by the corrosion. This is the reason not only for a battery’s eventual death, but also for the way it dies, slowly losing electric potential because the anode (lower potential metal or connection) is slowly destroyed by the action of galvanic corrosion.

To be clear, the difference between electronics and other electrical systems is that electronics include active components to control the flow of electricity, whereas non-electronic electrical systems use mechanical switches or relays. The development of the vacuum tube (the first active component invented) allowed for the creation of far more complex systems than was possible with prior technology. Then solid-state transistors allowed electronics to shrink to sizes unthinkable before. Certainly at this point it is trivial to say that electronics are ubiquitous in society today and will only continue to become more so in the coming years, all the way up to the singularity, at which point we will become our own technology. As electronics have developed through the years, they have been given increasingly more important tasks. From air traffic control to car computers to medical equipment to missile defense, systems which include electronics control and protect our lives everyday. Thus it is essential that we know how to maintain them, for which we must also know how they degrade.