What Is a Taggant?
Taggants are uniquely encoded materials or chemistries that serve as covert or overt identifiers, like fingerprints for your products. Each taggant is assigned meaning by the customer, enabling authentication, traceability, and protection against counterfeiting or false claims.
The first taggant technology, Microtaggant® Identification Particles, was developed by 3M. Today, these proprietary taggants are produced exclusively by Microtrace, which continues to lead in advanced taggant technologies for product authentication and brand protection.
What Taggants Do
Taggants authenticate materials, protect brands, and resolve liability issues. They can confirm whether a product or material is genuine, detect dilution, verify mix ratios, and differentiate SKUs to support customized device or system settings.
Where Taggants Are Used
A wide range of taggant systems can be tailored to fit diverse materials, processes, and project goals.
- Chemical taggants or taggant particles are:
- Organic or inorganic
- Soluble or insoluble
- Stable to UV light, heat or cold, and other environmental conditions
- Taggants can be incorporated:
- Directly into raw materials
- Onto surfaces through printing, spraying, or transfer processes
- Into packaging via inks, adhesives, plastics, labels, or paperboard
How Taggants Are Detected
Detection depends on the type of taggant and how it is applied. Microtrace supports a wide range of detection methods and tools.
- Detection methods include:
- Contact or non-contact distance detection
- Integration into OEM or customer devices
- Yes/no presence checks or quantitative analysis
- AI-based classification and cloud reporting
- Detection tools may involve:
- UV lights
- Microscopes
- Laser pens
- Handheld spectrometers
- Low-cost field detectors
- Smart detection systems
- Laboratory-based verification
- Mobile phone verification
Taggant Security: What Matters Most
Not all taggant systems deliver true security. Many commercially available options are easy to replicate and provide only a false sense of protection. When taggants are not customized or properly implemented, they may be indistinguishable from counterfeit versions, leaving brands and supply chains exposed.
A secure taggant program requires:
- A unique signature tailored to your application
- Strict control over sampling, access and formulation
- Detection parameters calibrated to the final printed or applied signature
If detectors are set to accept wide tolerances from uncontrolled processes, counterfeiters can exploit these gaps to fool the system. True product authentication and anti-counterfeiting protection depend on tightly engineered taggant technologies, controlled implementation, and precise detection systems.
The Microtrace Advantage
Microtrace delivers more than taggants. We provide complete authentication systems that are secure by design. Each solution is supported by in-house expertise in:
- Chemistry and materials science
- Application engineering
- Detection hardware and data analytics
By controlling every stage of development and deployment, we ensure cohesion across formulation, application, detection, and analysis. This vertically integrated approach eliminates security gaps and strengthens product authentication, brand protection, and supply chain security.
