Characterization of natural polymers as functional barriers for cellulose-based packaging materials

ABSTRACT

Cellulose-based packaging materials are currently the most commonly used food packaging materials due to their light weight, stability and affordable price. However, the use of recycled paper and board adds to the risk that undesirable substances migrate into the packed goods, since contaminants are not completely removed during the recycling process and can accumulate in the final product. The only available fast and practical solution that can be used to reduce the migration of these substances is the application of functional barriers in the packaging. The applied barriers are currently mostly synthetic, which either serve only a moderate barrier function and/or have the disadvantage that it is often more complex and expensive to recycle the resulting packaging material. The aim of this project is to evaluate different bio-based or biodegradable polymers with regards to their barrier properties. Due to the fact that the transport phenomena are mainly driven by (gas phase) migration, methods based on gas chromatography (GC), including GC coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and flame ionization detection (GC-FID), GC-FID coupled online with high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC-GC-FID), and comprehensive GCxGC-MS were used to qualify and quantify the migrated substances. This use of a wide range of different methods and instruments yielded excellent results, allowing us to comprehensively characterize the biopolymers and their barrier function.

KEYWORDS:

• Functional barrier
• overall migration
• specific migration
• mineral oil hydrocarbons
• barrier materials
• HPLC-GC-FID
• GC-MS
• GC-FID

Author Contributions

Andrea Walzl performed the migration and permeation experiments including all measurements, the validation of method, application onto the samples and data evaluation. Samir Kopacic performed the coating of the paper. All authors mentioned have analyzed and summarized the data and helped writing the paper.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge all industrial partners who were part of the project for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the authors

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG) under Grant [885640].