Single-use plastic food packaging is considered one of the sources of chemical contaminants in food. It is also considered one of the causes of marine pollution (plastic waste and microplastics). They consume non-renewable resources and produce CO2. In addition, the bill to combat waste and the circular economy sends a strong signal about the need to change production, distribution and consumption models.
The logic of substituting "stable" resources from synthetic chemistry with [bio]degradable or more fragile recycled materials raises many questions:
- the introduction of a large number of potential migrants whose exact nature and quantities present are little known and variable over time and as a function of geographical origin) .
- the use of polymers under nominal purity conditions due to a certain level of degradation (this issue is common to repeated uses of the article, polymer, oligomers or monomers) .
- the lack of good aging models for polymers (alone or in blends) .
- some fractions such as fermentation co-products or residues, products and substances used for recycling are technological issues in their own right: how to dispose of them, prevent their use, how to choose them?
- "Unknown" contaminants are exchanged between materials, packaging layers and packaging levels.
The use of functional barriers is therefore frequent in the case of recycled materials, substances not specifically regulated. The most common and effective functional barriers are ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH), polyamide (PA), silicon oxide and aluminum oxide. However, some polar materials are sensitive to humidity and temperature, and therefore lose their barrier properties during use.
A good model for predicting the behavior of functional barriers under the varied conditions of use, shaping, storage, use by the food industry and the consumer, food preservation is important to improve the robustness of material transfer calculation tools for a development of recycled materials in direct food contact, and also for conventional multilayer materials, of which knowledge on the prediction of migration behavior of voluntarily added compounds is little known.
This very recent topic is at the heart of LNE's strategic R&D axes. The projects listed below are solid foundations for future collaborations with industry, technical centers and universities.
The projects
"FoodSafeBioPack" project: Evaluating and managing the migration of contaminants from cellulosic materials
"ABA Modeling" project: modeling the migration of ABA trays into packaged foods
"FITNess" project: Food packaging open courseware for higher education and staff of companies
"NANOCOAT" project: nano-filled coatings with high gas barrier properties: an alternative for recycling multilayer packaging films
"MAP'OPT" project: Composition, gas dynamics and optimization of food protection in modified atmosphere packaging