Characterization of barrier properties and temperature resistance of biobased plastics for food packaging

With a steady annual growth rate of 8.7% from 1950 to 2012, finding a class of materials that is as successful as plastics will be very hard. Today, petroleum-based plastics, such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyamide (PA) are used in more and more applications and they have become an essential part of our modern lifestyle. Packaging, particularly food packaging, covers a big part of this plastics industry and trends like convenience and portioning have led to an increased use of raw materials, which is currently mainly crude oil. Environmental (consumer awareness, CO2-emissions) and economic reasons (dependence of oil industry) has triggered the interest of the food and packaging industry towards packaging materials made from renewable resources. Furthermore, increasing research and development in the field of these novel plastics leads to more and more applications and emerging new materials (Lagarón & Lopez-Rubio, 2011, OECD, 2013, Philp, 2014, Plastics Europe, 2013). Although the interest in biobased plastics is growing, a lot of stakeholders in the Flemish food industry are doubtful regarding the introduction of biobased plastics. This can mainly be attributed to the lack of knowledge regarding these new materials and their possibilities. Therefore, the aim of this research was to increase the knowledge of the different stakeholders within the food industry concerning biobased plastics by trying to close the gap between the academic world, where a lot of research in the field of biobased plastics is performed and the food/packaging industry to whom this research could be of great value.

http://ift.tt/2uPIupt