Discovery Could Lead to More Sustainable Food Packaging Coatings
AMSTERDAM — A future where food packaging is more sustainable – and no longer contains aluminum – has moved a step closer, thanks to a major breakthrough in ongoing research involving AkzoNobel. PhD student Jiaying Li has made an important discovery in the area of food packaging. Li is working with the Dutch Advanced Research Center Chemical Building Blocks Consortium (ARC CBBC), in collaboration with the University of Twente, Wageningen University, BASF and AkzoNobel. The research is focused on a new, recyclable coating to replace the type of “metallized” packaging, which blocks out oxygen, that is typically used for products such as potato chips and coffee.
Currently, this sort of packaging consists of several layers, each with its own function. As well as requiring a lot of energy to produce, it is also difficult to recycle. A process has now been devised that involves the smart combination of two water-soluble polymers (polyelectrolytes), resulting in all the functionality being delivered by one recyclable layer.