Why Performing a Humidity Test is Important for Packaging Industry?

Environmental conditions have a very strong effect on things around us. Changes occur every day but cannot be noticed with naked eyes, unless they become huge. Humidity is one such factor that changes the properties of the material when exposed to severe conditions. However, now a days sufficient steps are taken by the manufacturer to minimise the effects of humidity, but to a certain extent. Adhesive materials are the major sufferers of humidity, we call humidity the biggest enemy of adhesion. In the packaging industry, manufacturers often deal with this complaint of weak adhesive strength due to humidity conditions. For them, Presto Group has a solution… Humidity Chamber.

How to simulate humidity conditions with this test chamber?

We have 2 models, viz, PCC -800 and Prima Series.

You can actually simulate 2 climatic conditions in one chamber, one is humidity and second is temperature; but altogether. It has 2-3 racks to place the samples. You just need to place the sample, set the humidity whether the cold humid condition or hot humid condition. When we are saying cold humid condition; we don’t mean temperature around 10°C or something… we are talking about temperature somewhere around 25°C. After setting the temperature and humidity percentage set the timer and start the test. Once the test cycle is over, you need to do the visual inspection of the sample to see the effect of humidity on it.

Why is this test chamber important for Packaging industry?

Packaging industry uses a lot of adhesion for bonding two materials, especially in flexible packaging. For sealing the packet, for pasting films over bottles, printed plastic films pasted over paper packaging and so on, endless uses of adhesion. Let’s take an example of a packet of wafers. Though packet of wafers is sealed with the hot sealing process, but the packet has 2 films, one printed and one silver film to keep the inside contents safe. In extremely humid conditions, these films tend to get peeled off. To check if this packet can survive the intended humid conditions is checked by using humidity chamber. Similarly, for other packaging types, you can check the adhesive strength of the material in humid conditions. You can perform the test up to 95% humidity.

Humidity also affects the printability and colours of the packaging. Often print of the packet or carton contains important information about the contents inside, you cannot afford to have them faded off. So, it becomes an important testing instrument for the packaging industry.

Apart from packaging industry, it is very important for the cosmetics industry. In humid conditions, materials used in cosmetics tend to change their property, be it fluids, applicators or powdered cosmetics. Environment test chambers have ample of usage in different industries where final products may tend to remain in humid conditions.