Posted: April 28, 2009

(Nanowerk News) Microtrace, LLC a leading manufacturer of traceable anti counterfeit taggant technologies, today announced enhancements to their Microtaggant® technology as well as the availability of several ready-to-use solutions for product security / brand protection. Taggants are uniquely encoded for each customer or application and are used to address issues of counterfeiting, product liability / warranty and other product security / brand protection issues in a variety of industries. In the plastics industry, the anti counterfeit technology is compounded into a masterbatch for easy processing.

Magnified image of Microtaggants. The taggant can be delivered in dry powder form for compounding or as a finished masterbatch for processing. Mainly used for product security and brand protection.

Enhancements in the Microtrace Microtaggant technology make it the most robust traceable, anti counterfeit technology available. In it's basic form, the Microtaggant is a unique numeric code sequence in a multiple colored layer format. In it's more complex form, it delivers multiple layers of security through the incorporation of several nano / taggant technologies in a single microscopic particle. Verification and detection is done with a variety of inexpensive hand held readers and scanners.

Microtrace taggants are delivered to the plastics industry in two formats. For the compounder or masterbatcher, the taggants are delivered in dry particle form for compounding into a masterbatch. For the plastic processor, the taggants are delivered in a finished masterbatch per customer specification ready for processing. The anti counterfeit taggant masterbatch is processed as normal, there is no special equipment required. Taggants are able to be incorporated into a variety of plastic resin types and colors. The end result is a finished plastic product with covert identification and authentication capabilities for product security / brand protection.

"The technology has proven to be a very easy to use and very cost effective method of covertly identifying and authenticating plastic materials," says Brian Brogger Vice President Microtrace, LLC. "The technology is being used by a number of different compounders, masterbatchers and plastics processors throughout the world to covertly identify hundreds of millions of pounds of plastic used to make everything from construction materials to consumer packaging."

Microtrace taggants are like no other anti counterfeit technology. Microtrace can provide multiple taggant technologies-including nanotechnology materials- in a single delivery format. No other technology delivers such robust identification and authentication capabilities. Other anti counterfeit technologies offer only a single level of authentication whether it is visual, spectral or other identification method. Microtrace can incorporate one or all of these nano / taggant technologies within the structure of a single Microtaggant Identification Particle to provide the highest possible level of security for each application.