BeFORE (2024)
The main goal of BeFORE is to improve design for recycling of primary packaging by studying the implementation potential of promising flexible packaging materials with alternative barrier materials.
BeFORE - Barrier for recycling
Need and problem
Multilayer plastic and paper packaging play a key role in protecting sensitive products during shelf life. However, high-barrier packaging materials as complex multi-material structures (Alu; met; PVDC; EVOH; PVAL; PA) are excluded from the widely dominant mechanical recycling path and/or may hinder the recycling of other materials in waste streams. With the European demand to have all packaging reusable or recyclable by 2030, material selection is thus focused on mono-materials. Recommendations on refusing or limiting metal and polymer barrier layers are critical to qualify packaging as single-material, sortable and recyclable with available technologies. Consequently, there has been a paradigm shift to multi-layer packaging with a thin barrier layer inside the structure and packaging with thin functional coatings fulfilling barrier requirements. "Barrier" is an umbrella term encompassing multiple factors, most commonly oxygen, moisture, fat/oil and liquid water. Apart from “classical” materials like EVOH and metals, AlO x /SiO x and dispersion coatings are frequently used. The preference of thin barrier layers or coatings has implications towards the processability of the material and the functionality of the final packaging: a thinner material is more susceptible to damage during processing steps, such as puncturing damage, folding, thermoforming and more. Such damages can negatively affect the barrier properties of the material and lead to discrepancies to expectations raised from tests performed under ideal conditions.
Thus, optimizing and validating these materials for packaging concepts under inclusion of realistic processing and testing conditions is needed in the sectors of food, petfood and cosmetics, who are the main users of multilayer packaging.
Innovation target
The main goal of this project is to improve design for recycling of primary packaging by studying the
implementation potential of promising flexible packaging materials with alternative barrier materials in a realistic testing regimen.
Contact : Prof. Roos Peeters, +32 477885234, roos.peeters@uhasselt.be