MATERIALS | PLASTIC POUCHES
The goal of the project is to show technical and financial viability of in-store collection and semi- industrial recycling of more rPET food packaging. It will begin with in-store collection schemes (lasting up to five months in at least five stores) followed by collecting, sorting and chemically recycling the materials to convert it into new film.
Above: Refill pouches can help to reduce demand for single-use plastics
containers such as bottles
pete with traditional multi-layer structures. MDO film is typically used in twist film or breathable film, while BOPE has good barrier and low-temperature properties. Mono-PE films are now commonly used in plastic pouches, he said.
BOPE and MDO PE have many complementary
properties, he said – with MDO typically adding strength, and BOPE offering good optical proper- ties and printability.
PET food PET, often combined with other materials in traditional pouches, can also be used in mono- material designs. Again, biorientation – in the form of BOPET – allows property improvements to allow mono-material designs. In one example, Searious Business and Mitsubishi Polyester Film showed how BOPET can be used to make household packaging circular. Here, monoPET packaging – that incorporates
recycled PET – has high recyclability rates while also helping to reduce plastics usage, said the companies. The companies added that mono-PET designs have a 27% lower GWP than PET/LDPE, due to being thinner and using recyclate. In addition, they claimed that a mono-PE version has a 36% higher GWP than PET/LDPE. Chemical recycling of PET films – which uses glycolysis – also generates less CO2 equivalent, they said, because PET/LDPE and mono-PE solutions both require pyrolysis, they said. One project is ‘PET4Pet’, is looking to use mono-PET for petfood pouches, in order to boost circularity. Mono-PET – using recyclate – has high mechanical strength and temperature stability, plus good barrier properties and printability, said the companies.
26 FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION | July/August 2024
Testing time Georgios Kodros, general manager of Germany- based Labthink, introduced a new type of sensor, which he said could be used to carry out more accurate oxygen-barrier testing. He said the company’s coulometric sensor also allows an ultra-wide range and has high repeatabil- ity. All permeated oxygen molecules are transport- ed to the coulometric sensor – by nitrogen carrier gas – and then react completely to generate electrical current. This differs from a ‘partial absorption’ OTR sensor, he said, which sees only a small portion of oxygen molecules permeate through a film and generate current, he said. “When testing high-barrier and ultra-high-barrier
materials, full absorption coulometric OTR sensor has ultra-high oxygen detection sensitivity and stability, so is more suitable,” he told delegates. Because the partial absorption sensor works in a
high oxygen concentration without overloading, it can be used for low-barrier materials, he added. Labthink uses tunable diode laser absorption
spectroscopy (TDLAS) technology, while other sensors use non-dispersive infrared (NDIR), he said. While NDIR uses IR light – a broad-spectrum light source – TDLAS uses a single-frequency light source, giving it better sensitivity and stability to trace water vapour, said Kodros.
Pouch collaboration Henkel and Borealis presented details of a collaborative project to produce a mono-PE pouch containing recyclate. Along with Korozo, a packaging converter, they
created flexible packaging for products such as washing powder that used 30% recycled PE. The design used polymers from Borealis’ range
of recycled polymers, including three Borcycle LLDPE grades, as well as virgin resins such as Anteo and Queo. The project, which began in 2019, was imple- mented this year. The film created is 90-160 microns thick, and is used to contain 1.2-10.8kg of powdered product. “The bags were adapted without compromising
product quality, shelf impression or production efficiency,” said Isabella Bodin – international
www.filmandsheet.com
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
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