Manufacturers mainly use air tight stand up pouch bags to prolong the shelf life of organic products. Aerobic (those who need oxygen to survive) bacteria in organic products thrive in the presence of oxygen. Air tight food pouches packaging creates an impregnable barrier against atmospheric oxygen. In the absence of oxygen, aerobic bacteria cannot live long and consequently cannot spoil food.
Manufacturers of electronic products also use airtight stand up bags to protect delicate electronic equipment from environmental impurities. Some electronic products – especially those used in scientific research – are very sensitive. Even the minutest impurities can wreak havoc to their functioning. Air tight stand up pouches make an effective barrier against these impurities.
Vacuum sealing and canning are two popular types of air tight packaging. Manufacturers mainly use vacuum sealing techniques to make air tight stand up pouches. In this technique, air is sucked out of a pouch just before sealing. This results in a crumpled looking packet. This technique is primarily used on foods such as beef jerky, and electronic products.
If a food is fragile (like chips), nitrogen is pumped in to occupy the vacuum just before sealing. Nitrogen is an inert gas that does not react with aerobic bacteria in food. Many snacks can be packaged using this technique.
In both cases of air tight packaging, there are two ways to increase air pressure – (a) from inside, or (b) from outside.
Stand up pouches and rise in internal air pressure
A puncture in a vacuum sealed packet increases pressure from the inside. It lets atmospheric gases into the packaging, thus increasing the pressure. Internal pressure keeps on increasing until it is equal to the external atmospheric pressure. At this moment there is no net pressure on the pouch because both internal and external pressures are balancing each other out. Without a net pressure, there is no reason for an air tight stand up pouch to explode.
Stand up pouches and rise in external air pressure
The air pressure on an airtight package can be increased either artificially by placing that packaging inside a high pressure chamber. Or, it can be done naturally by taking packaging deep into the sea where atmospheric pressure is several times that on the surface. Both of these situations are hypothetical. An average consumer is neither going to take his or her air tight packaging into the depths of the sea, or place it in expensive pressure chambers just to watch it explode. Therefore, under normal circumstances, a stand up pouch will not explode because of external air pressure.