Recyclable Coatings for Multilayer F&B Packaging

Edible food wrappers are safe packaging systems that can be consumed with food. Edible packaging developed using natural renewable resources come under the category of bio-based and biodegradable packaging. The main components of edible wrappers include a biopolymer solubilized in a solvent to form film casting solution and certain additives to improve functional characteristics of packaging. Biopolymers are frequently used in food packaging applications due to their flexibility in film formation and biodegradability. The development of green packaging materials utilizing discarded edible materials will be beneficial to confront the challenges associated with traditional packaging systems, attaining sustainability, and fostering recycling in the food industry. Edible food wrappers present a number of benefits over synthetic materials. These packaging systems can replace and possibly strengthen the outside layers of packed items in order to elude moisture loss, flavors, and bioactive components from the foods as well as between them.

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Traditional food packaging is primarily designed to extend the shelf life of food and provide product information to consumers. In the last decade, intelligent packaging has emerged as an innovative food packaging system that integrates intelligent functionalities, making it a cutting-edge research area. Of the numerous approaches in this field, polysaccharides have appeared as highly promising materials for intelligent food packaging systems due to their advantageous properties, including biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, and renewability. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the latest research results in the development and application of intelligent food packaging materials using natural polysaccharides. The film-forming mechanisms and influencing factors of polysaccharide-based films are emphasized, along with exploring natural polysaccharides extracted from different sources. Additionally, the challenges and future prospects of using polysaccharides in intelligent food packaging materials are discussed. The study summarizes intelligent ... Read More

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Abstract The food industry is adapting to evolving consumer demands for healthy and premium quality food by reducing the adverse effects of food packaging through innovative advancements in active and intelligent packaging technologies. These smart innovations offer diverse and creative ways to enhance food product quality and safety while extending shelf life. Emerging techniques are also improving the passive aspects of food packaging systems, such as thermal stability, barrier effectiveness, and mechanical strength. Notably, the use of plants, biodegradable materials, and nanomaterials in sustainable food packaging helps mitigate its negative environmental impact. By integrating intelligent, environmentally friendly, and active packaging technologies, a multipurpose food packaging system can be developed that maintains the integrity of all its components, representing the pinnacle of technological advancement in food packaging. This article reviews the fundamentals of food packaging systems, recent advancements in various packaging techniques, commercialized patents, future rese... Read More

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Globally, there are only low recycling rates for single-use plastic packaging materials with only 14% of plastic packaging being collected for recycling and only 5% of it successfully recycled into new plastic materials. The recycling of multi-material multilayer plastic packaging is complex since the recycling industry is not able to identify, sort and separate the diverse layers with current standard technologies. The use of post-consumer polyolefins is increasing due to the pledges of multiple organizations to use higher concentrations of recycled materials in packaging. Sustainability in packaging is definitely needed. One way for consumer product companies to reach their sustainability goals is to have their packages made from recycled plastic. There is a wide variety of legislation covering recycled plastics for use in food contact applications. Plastic waste recycling methods associated with single and multilayer polymer systems and their stages are described.

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Food packaging plays a vital role in the modern food industry. Packaging is a coordinated system of preparing foods for transport, distribution, storage, retailing, and use. Keeping the contents clean, fresh, and safe for the intended shelf life is a primary function of food packaging. Without proper packaging materials and diverse formats, foods cannot be efficiently transported worldwide and reach consumers safely. Packaging materials result from science and engineering with each having unique features. Paper and plastic are two dominant contributors to packaging. Glass and metal materials have excellent performance in preserving food. With sustainability awareness increasing, biobased materials have gained a lot of attention. This chapter introduces the four primary packaging materials, paper, plastics, glass, and metal, plus biobased polymers, focusing on their physical and chemical properties and their application. Multilayer structure packaging materials, which are practical solutions to meet barrier, strength, and storage requirements of food items, are mentioned. Auxiliary ma... Read More

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Packaging is fundamental to maintaining the quality of food, but its contribution with a negative footprint to the environment must be completely changed worldwide to reduce pollution and climate change. Innovative and sustainable packaging and new strategies of reutilization are necessary to reduce plastic waste accumulation, maintain food quality and safety, and reduce food losses and waste. The purpose of this chapter is to present innovations in food packaging for a sustainable and circular economy. First, to present the eco-design packaging approach as well as new strategies for recycled or recyclable materials in food packaging. Second, to show current trends in new packaging materials developed from the use of agro-industrial wastes as well as new methods of production, including 3D/4D printing, electrostatic spinning, and the use of nanomaterials.

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This study uses content analysis to analyze 84 winning cases of sustainable packaging in Pentaward and Dieline 20212022 competitions. The analysis is carried out from three aspects of the container's modeling type, structural elements, and materials. Find the shape type of the container: Among the 54 award-winning works in the Pentaward, there are more bottle structures, with a total of 19 (35%) works, and 12 pieces (22%) of the box structure; 30 types of packaging in the Dieline competition Among the products, there are ten kinds of products with box structure design (33%), and other special-shaped structures (8 pieces, 27%). Structural elements: Recyclable packaging is a necessary structural element in award-winning works. "Detachable, easy to compress, self-sealing folding packaging" and "design standardized, modular, serialized packaging" are the directions that researchers are focusing on. Materials: The more widely used materials are paper (41%) and glass (20%), and the paper and printing inks used on glass are mostly degradable and plant-based. From the analysis of the award-... Read More

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This article presents an overview of sustainable food packaging with a focus on food safety. It discusses current issues relating to sustainability and how alternatives to single-use food packages influence the transition to a true circular economy which includes recycling, reuse, composting, and bio-based packaging. Definitions, legislations, requirements, limitations, examples, and applications of sustainable packaging are covered. Examples include sustainable materials available in the marketplace and those under development, plus applications such as modified atmosphere packaging, active, and intelligent packaging. The intersection between sustainable packaging and food safety is discussed with reference to issues such as microplastics, nanoparticles, chemical migration, antimicrobial compounds, and in-package gas compositions.

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The use of aseptic packaging creates many opportunities around the world to replace plastic based packaging of liquid and food-based containers in the near future. This will lead to a cleaner environment, less pollution within the air and the sea, and will help stimulate growth within the economy. Soon the use of aseptic packaging containers will be global which will help decrease the amount of pollution along with the number of landfills throughout the world. Many of the world regions highlighted in this paper are decreasing their plastic usage while increasing their recycled product production. As societal values are shifting more towards green materials and sustainable living, the general consumer is becoming more educated and aware of their ability to impact companies and government views, and are placing a larger value on sustainable, recyclable packaging. Aseptic packaging will be an important part of consumerism and the growing market contributes to a more sustainable, greener world as the efficiency of the recycling and production processes using aseptic packaging materials w... Read More

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Packaging materials are a significant part of our lives due to their daily usage at grocery stores, supermarkets, restaurants, pharmaceuticals, etc. Packaging plays an important role in ensuring that the products are preserved during handling, transporting, and storage. Similarly, it helps to maintain and prolong the shelf life of products. These materials are used for packaging meats, poultry and seafood products, food and beverages, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical products. Several applications of packaging materials have been discussed extensively, with little discussion on their end of life and continuous availability without impacting the environment. This study presents the need for sustainable packaging as a result of growing demands and the environmental impact of packaging materials after use. This study also presents the importance, types, and applications of packaging materials. Based on the findings of this study, sustainable packaging is made possible by using bio-based and recyclable materials. These materials contribute a great deal to protecting and ensuring a sustainab... Read More

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In this work, the use of a recycled mix stemming from the treatment of multilayer aseptic packaging used in the food and beverage industry is proposed as the matrix for short fibre composites reinforced with flax fibres, to generate value-added materials in contrast to the more common end-of-life scenario including energy recovery. This is expected to be a preferred choice in the waste hierarchy at the European level. A commercially available material (EcoAllene) obtained from multilayer packaging recycling was compounded with short flax fibres up to 30 wt.% by twin screw extrusion, with a view to enhancing its poor mechanical profile and broadening its applications. Composites were in depth analyzed by thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, which highlighted the complex nature of this recycled product, a limited nucleation ability of flax fibres and a lower thermal stability due to the premature degradation of natural hemicellulose and cellulose, though featuring in any case onset degradation temperatures higher than 300 C. Composites' mechanical properti... Read More

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"Renewable and Recyclable Polymeric Materials for Food Packaging" is a new open Special Issue of Materials that will publish original and review papers on new scientific and applied research, and the articles it contains will make a contribution to the discovery and understanding of biodegradable and recyclable materials, their functional properties, characterization and applications [...].

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Abstract Since the introduction of multilayered flexible plastics (MLFP) in the global market, their consumption has been on a rise. Because of the use of different plastics and metals with varying properties, recycling this form of packaging is a tedious task and a huge challenge for humanity. In this work, an attempt is made to recycle this waste using the methods in mechanical recycling to make useful commodities. After the making these commodities, their mechanical properties, such as tensile and compression strength, are tested, and the results are discussed.

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This chapter provides an analysis of the main packaging systems for semi-finished and ready for use meat products. A characteristic of active packaging systems is given. The compositions of multilayer packaging materials were studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and microstructural analysis. The possibility to extend shelf life of meat products depending on the barrier characteristics of the packaging materials has been determined. The compositions of multilayer films were proposed to ensure short-term up to five days, medium-term up to 60 days and long-term up to 12 months of meat products storage.

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Nowadays, food packaging technologies are under consistent evolution in response to growing consumer demands for fresh and minimally processed foods with longer shelf life. Unfortunately, in most of the cases, no single packaging material is able to fulfil all the necessary criteria required for an ideal packaging. Multilayer packaging films or coatings are unique and promising solution to most of the pitfalls faced by conventional and advanced packaging systems. These multilayer structures ensure to provide all the essential requirements necessary for an ideal food packaging material by combining different material layers and their functions in a single item. The involvement of nanotechnology in food packaging technology has offered numerous advantages. Recently, multilayer films incorporated with nanostructures have been developed, which show promising application as food packaging materials with improved barrier, mechanical, and thermal properties along with complementing active and intelligent package functionalities. This chapter mainly focuses on the recent developments on nano... Read More

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Abstract Food safety and extended shelf life linked to convenience were the major reasons for the development of the packaging field. However, advances in material science and the widespread encapsulation technologies are allowing the establishment of new concepts for packages, such as intelligent and active packages. Particulate systems have been developed in recent years for the most diverse area with several purposes that can be employed to improve packaging performance mainly focusing on the modification of barrier properties. This review analyzes the recent developments using encapsulation in food packaging and the main concepts about mass transfer evolved in the functionality of these packages, as well as discusses the research challenges faced by the food packaging sector.

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As per dictionary meaning, the word semi-rigid means the materials which are stiff and moderately rigid but not flexible in nature in terms of its hardness property of the materials. These materials are having adequate mechanical strength and other functional properties. These materials can be made either from cellulosic materials like paperboard or the different packaging formats made from paperboard like folding cartons, lined cartons, paper-based laminated composite carton, bag in box, composite containers, Multilayered Squeezable tube and Thermoformed Containers etc. The different types of semi-rigid packaging materials are developed to meet the requirement of various types of food products for enhancement of shelf-life and also to withstand all kinds of Chemical, mechanical and Biological hazards which might occur during handling, storage and transportation resulting into the damage of packages as well as products. In order to understand in depth about different types of semi-rigid packaging materials, the types materials, its manufacturing process, properties and its applicat... Read More

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Multilayer flexible food packaging is under pressure to redesign for recyclability. Most multilayer films are not sorted and recycled with the currently available infrastructure, which is based on mechanical recycling in most countries. Up to now, multilayer flexible food packaging was highly customizable. Diverse polymers and non-polymeric layers allowed a long product shelf-life and an optimized material efficiency. The need for more recyclable solutions asks for a reduction in the choice of material. Prospectively, there is a strong tendency that multilayer flexible barrier packaging should be based on polyolefins and a few recyclable barrier layers, such as aluminium oxide (AlOx) and silicon oxide (SiOx). The use of ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) and metallization could be more restricted in the future, as popular Design for Recycling Guidelines have recently reduced the maximum tolerable content of barrier materials in polyolefin packaging. The substitution of non-recyclable flexible barrier packaging is challenging because only a limited number of barriers are available. In the ... Read More

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The food and pharmaceutical industries recognized edible packaging as a useful alternative or addition to conventional packaging to reduce waste and to create novel applications for improving product stability, quality, safety, variety and convenience for consumers. This study was done to compare the different types of edible packaging materials, their classifications and their applications. The aim of this study was to better understand the potential of fruits and vegetables to be used as components of edible packaging materials is discussed. Such application of fruits and vegetables is possible to the presence of matrix-forming polysaccharides and proteins in their composition. The development of edible fruit and vegetable packaging materials is a promising way of combining the barrier and mechanical properties of biopolymers with the nutritional and sensory properties. The application of fruits and vegetables as a component of edible packaging materials enables the utilization of raw materials with low commercial value. Edible packaging materials are a new method of their utilizin... Read More

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Packaging in general is frequently overlooked and demonized. The lack of educational programs and efficient waste treatment lead packaging to be treated as an environmental problem. However, packaging is an enabler of our society because it makes feasible the availability of any and every good, regardless of its production location. Furthermore, the packaging business plays a significant role in the global economy, following a continuous trend of growth. The use of fillers in various packaging types can be a valuable resource not only for reducing its cost but also improving its mechanical strength (therefore reducing the number of raw materials required for making that specific package), improving its visual properties to ensure customer attractiveness, creating new possibilities of use, and extending the shelf life of perishable foods. However, the use of fillers in packaging should be made in a way that permits proper recovery and recycling after use.

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