NEW ARTICLE: Decreasing Moisture Sensitivity of Biobased Food Packaging Materials

Monday, 19 September 2011 08:10

Green economy, also referred as biobased economy, utilizes biomass derived raw materials for high-volume applications, such as packaging. Barrier properties are extremely important for biobased food packaging materials as both gas and water vapor transmission through packaging reduce the quality of food resulting shorter shelf-lives, increased costs and eventually more waste.

Barrier properties of biobased films can be retained even in high humidity conditions. Crosslinking was found to be an efficient tool for decreasing moisture sensitivity of biobased nanocomposite films. For example, the polysaccharide-nanoclay bio-hybrid films were successfully crosslinked with glutaraldehyde, genipin and glyoxal. Moisture sensitivity decreased as a result of crosslinking which led to improved water vapor and oxygen barrier properties.

Crosslinking may be used as an efficient tool for enhancing the exploitability of naturally hydrophilic biopolymers towards new applications, such as food packaging. Together with the industrial partners VTT is actively developing innovative solutions based on value-added wood- and other biomass-based products.

VTT’s Senior Scientist Jari Vartiainen and Research Professor Ali Harlin published an article Crosslinking as an Efficient Tool for Decreasing Moisture Sensitivity of Biobased Nanocomposite Films in Materials Sciences and Applications.

To read the results in depth, you can find the open access full text article from:
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=4775

For further information, please contact:
Jari Vartiainen, Senior Scientist
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it