Properties of Whey-Protein-Coated Films and Laminates as Novel Recyclable Food Packaging Materials with Excellent Barrier Properties

By M. Schmid, Kerstin Dallmann, Elodie Bugnicourt, D. Cordoni, F. Wild, Andrea Lazzeri, K. Noller. 2012

171 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In case of food packaging applications, high oxygen and water vapour barriers are the prerequisite conditions for preserving the quality of the products throughout their whole lifecycle. Currently available polymers and/or biopolymer films are mostly used in combination with barrier materials derived from oil based plastics or aluminium to enhance their low barrier properties. In order to replace these non-renewable materials, current research efforts are focused on the development of sustainable coatings, while maintaining the functional properties of the resulting packaging materials. This article provides an introduction to food packaging requirements, highlights prior art on the use of whey-based coatings for their barriers properties, and describes the key properties of an innovative packaging multilayer material that includes a whey-based layer. The developed whey protein formulations had excellent barrier properties almost comparable to the ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymers (EVOH) barrier layer conventionally used in food packaging composites, with an oxygen barrier (OTR) of <2 [cm³(STP)/(m²d bar)] when normalized to a thickness of 100 μm. Further requirements of the barrier layer are good adhesion to the substrate and sufficient flexibility to withstand mechanical load while preventing delamination and/or brittle fracture. Whey-protein-based coatings have successfully met these functional and mechanical requirements.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2586f958562d35fbda758744beb61063c1614864

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Citations in the corpus

State of the Art in the Development and Properties of Protein-Based Films and Coatings and Their Applicability to Cellulose Based Products: An Extensive Review (2015, background): “[55,56] showed it is possible for whey protein to use high concentrated aqueous protein solutions.”
Protein-Based Films: Advances in the Development of Biomaterials Applicable to Food Packaging (2019, background): “Protein films coated with PLA, PolyPropylene (PP), or PolyEthylene Terephthalate (PET) conferred greater resistance, extensibility, and barrier properties to oxygen and water vapor up to the levels of low-density polyethylene and cellulose acetate films [31, 72, 123, 144].”
Poly(lactic) acid (PLA) and starch bilayer films, containing cinnamaldehyde, obtained by compression moulding (2017, background): “Then, the assembly of starch and amorphous PLA exhibited very good barrier capacity for both water vapour and oxygen, which confers them adequate functionality for food packaging applications, meeting the requirements of a wide range of food products [42].”
Review on the Processing and Properties of Polymer Nanocomposites and Nanocoatings and Their Applications in the Packaging, Automotive and Solar Energy Fields (2017, methodology): “For example, to provide a high arrier to oxygen in a very humid environment, material such as EVOH, which is sensitive to water, but very high barrier to oxygen, can be sandwiched between two layers of a hydrophobic polymer like PE [55,118,119].”
Recycling of Polymer-Based Multilayer Packaging: A Review (2017, background): “Hereby, no significant affection from washing with enzymatic detergents could be observed [68,70].”