The cold-chain challenge: à la carte Time-temperature indicators enabled by patterned structural colour in organic semiconductors

Introduction

The global demand for cold-chain logistics is surging, driven by changing consumer lifestyles, government legislations to reduce waste, and rapid diversification of supply chains. The pressure is particularly felt in the pharmaceutical and medical industries, where many life-saving products such as vaccines, peptides, blood, and plasma explicitly require shipping and handling at specific temperatures.

Challenges in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The use of time-temperature indicators to provide visual cues for undesirable exposure to elevated temperatures offers the means for cold-chain verification. However, the existing food market indicators cannot fully address the specific challenges posed by the pharmaceutical industry, such as:

1. Small size and flexible form factors.
2. Low cost for item-level applications and distribution in low-income countries.
3. Operation at ultra-low temperatures from –20 down to –70 °C for mRNA vaccines.

Project Ambition

The ambition of VERITASCAN is to advance a new class of time-temperature indicators, drawing on emerging ‘smart packaging’ concepts and harnessing recent breakthroughs in scalable micro-processing of organic semiconductors realized within my group.

Technical Approach

Specifically, my team will deliver versatile indicators designed based on patterned organic semiconductor films that are erasable on-demand by selection of molecular ‘solvents’. We will optimize the temperature range and accumulative exposure monitoring, as well as validate the commercial viability of the technology via comprehensive field tests with our industrial partners.

Objectives

My interim objective is to establish a sustainable value creation model in the market. The long-term goal of VERITASCAN is to introduce transformative user-centered technology that addresses urgent societal needs.