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Consumers may soon be able to go for longer between milk-buying trips. That's because Brazilian company Agrindus hopes to start marketing plastic milk bottles that use embedded silver nanoparticles to kill bacteria. Grade A pasteurized fresh whole milk packaged in those bottles can reportedly last for up to 15 days, as opposed to the usual seven.
The technology was developed by partner company Nanox, and involves first coating silica ceramic particles with silver nanoparticles. This reportedly has a synergistic effect, with the silica boosting the antimicrobial properties of the silver.
Those coated particles take the form of a powder that is subsequently mixed into liquid polyethylene. Using blow- or injection-molding, that plastic is then made into bottles which Agrindus plans to sell to dairy goods companies. The particles can also be used to make milk bags, which should extend shelf life from four to 10 days.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 06 2015, @01:37PM
Milk is milk, it's probably not really good for 14 days every time. You can't put a date on there and assume that it's going to be automatically good for that long. If you take care of it, as in keep it refrigerated, then it will usually last a couple weeks. Generally, it's about a week beyond the sell buy date, or whatever date the store uses. Regardless of when the milk says it's good till, there's a ton of sugar and if you're not storing it properly or it becomes contaminated, then all bets are off as to how long it will last.
The silver is probably more to do with situations where the milk has been allowed to warm a bit or you really need it to stay good for longer.
Personally, I don't think the risk of nano-particles that can puncture bacteria being ingested is worth it. I buy enough milk that it never lasts more than 2 weeks anyways, so I'm not sure why this would be worth the risk.