By Tommy Osborne

UNBC Research

UNBC researchers create groundbreaking material, potentially with global impacts

May 22, 2025 | 4:54 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Researchers at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) have developed a groundbreaking material, which could potentially revolutionize the food packaging industry. Working with industry partner Brown’s Bay Packaging Company Ltd. the research team have developed a new material named “thermolock,” which is a recyclable material that can keep food cold while it’s being transported.

“We can deliver the same property as styrofoam, but at the same time it’s recyclable. So this is something that can really just have a huge impact on the industry for the packaging of food,” said lead researcher Dr. Hossein Kazemian.

“The system that we have now is even much better than the traditional polystyrene in terms of thermal resistance and durability,” added post-doctoral researcher Banchamlak Kassaun.

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Kazemian explained the industry primarily used styrofoam, which is not recyclable in many areas due to not having the facilities to properly recycle it. Because of that, Kazemiansays many places are banning the shipment of food in styrofoams, creating the need for eco-friendly materials like thermolock created by the UNBC research team.

“We are contributing to something that’s going to really solve one of the many problems we have in the world, which is plastic in this case,” Kazemian said.

Kazemian added that this is a focus of researchers all around the world, so there will be competition among other materials. However, he and his team are confident in thermolock, and it’s also received a lot of confidence from Brown’s Bay Packaging Ltd. The focus of thermolock was just for seafood transportation specifically, but the hope is this technology could be applied to many other forms of transportation.

“Our partner is working with many other end-users and clients. Right now, they are fundraising toward mass production, and right now they are starting to pilot mass scale production in Vancouver Island, which means this is going to have a huge impact worldwide,” Kazemian said.

Now that the material is proven to work, a $300,00 grant from BC Innovate will help towards the goal of mass production. Thermolock is definitely a huge step forward for UNBC and the food packaging industry as a whole, but Kazemian and Kassaun hope it’s just the first of many innovations the team creates.

“In our future works we are also aiming to utilize the food waste itself and making it a packaging material,” Kassaun said.

“We are collaborating with Canfor and some other partners to develop some products based on pulp waste, which is related to what we were working on in the past five years,” Kazemian added.

Moving forward, Kazemian says he has high hopes for the future of the research he and his team will accomplish, as all the knowledge and infrastructure built for the research of thermolock can now be applied to many other similar technologies. He adds that UNBC has also heard from potentially interested third parties to further the use of materials like thermolock and other biopolymers for things like recyclable drinking straws.

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