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Food Packaging advances using polymer composites
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Thursday, 07 April, 2022, 16 : 00 PM [IST]
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Gaurav Jalan
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 The major use of food packaging is to make a safety barrier against the transfer of moisture, water vapour and gases (oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ethylene), safeguarding food against contamination from the storage environment, and result giving information regarding the ingredients, expiration and packaged date and other commercial related information regarding the product and company which assists advertising for consumers, thus, it has a communication work that lets traceability and safely disposed of post its use.
In the initial times, natural materials like plant leaves, earthen pots, gourds, and baskets were in use for food preservation and storage. Industrial revolutions and the boost in the rates of mass food production have assisted enhanced packaging materials and technology, like tin cans, glass bottles, and jars, paper or board boxes, flexible plastic packaging, retort pouches have evolved, and today cent percent biodegradable packaging materials obtained from natural biomasses are replacing the present alternatives from non-renewable resources and unsustainable methods.
Some studies have investigated multiple aspects of the subject, with the target of giving an overview of present research perspectives, commercial usages, and future prospects in the arena of polymer and polymer composite food packaging study.
Hurdles with the Increase in Demand for Secure Food Packaging
As much as the story of human society ever since the industrial revolution has been one of success, the increasing world population has created environmental issues. A growing population, spiked urbanisation, and globalisation present demand for extra food production, with one of the important concerns being food protection and storage procedures. Safe, impactful food packaging is one of the key defining advances in the present food industry.
Polymers are particularly useful for this thing because of their beneficial qualities like the expense, simple production, lightweight, and top thermal, physical, chemical resistant, and corrosion-resistant characteristics. However, with the increased use of polymers in food and beverage packaging comes a problem of critical concern to modern-day society which is environmental damage.
The formation of polymers for food and beverage packaging contributes to huge greenhouse gas emissions, and like conventional synthetic polymers do not degrade that easily in the environment, an enormous quantity of food and beverage packaging waste gets piled up in marine ecosystems and landfills. Food and beverage packaging are quite hard to recycle, as the majority of recycling infrastructure is not able to handle contaminated plastic materials. Rather, food and beverage packaging is either disposed of in the ecosystem or burned up.
Food Protection
One more major concern with food and beverage production is the protective storage of food and beverage during production, distribution, sale, and intake. At one point the WHO (World Health Organization) assumed that 42 million people died because of food-borne illnesses and several hundred million people were ill worldwide.
Also, the financial loss from food-borne illnesses is big, particularly, in low- and middle-income countries. As per one 2018 World Bank report, global productivity losses incurred because of food-borne diseases are estimated to be in the region of around $92.5 billion, with healthcare expenses supposed to be nearly $15 billion. Polymers are highly-recognised packaging materials for enhancing food safety, which is a crucial factor in deciding social development.
Polymer Composites
Amongst the several proposed solutions to this issue, polymer composites have appeared as a research-centric in materials sciences and the food and beverage industry. Polymer composites are made of polymers with either nanoparticles or organic or inorganic components included in them. Composite materials could boost polymers and confer them with extra components beyond their original form and composition.
Nanomaterials have been used as fillers to boost the thermal, gas barrier, and mechanical properties of polymers, as well as instill them with antimicrobial qualities and intelligent functions like sensing and detection. Over the last 15 years, there has been a huge increase in research into novel polymer composite materials used for food packaging.
The Research
In the present research paper, the researcher has reviewed the latest progress in the development of polymer and polymer composite food packaging. The researcher has put forward a comprehensive review of over 400 papers, reports, and regulations from the last five decades.
The paper gives an introduction to biodegradable polymers that are generally studied for food packaging, as well as highlights the spiked demand for single-use packaging during the pandemic of Covid-19 that has shown the requirement for more sustainable packaging such as bioplastics that could degrade faster in the environment and are made using sustainable, circular procedures. Innovative usage of polymer composite materials for intelligent packaging, better packaging, and active packaging are exclusively highlighted in the paper.
The research talks about properties such as enhanced UV protection using metal and metal oxide nano-particle-polymer composites, multi-layered polymers that enhance gas barrier properties, gas (oxygen, CO2, and others.) scavenging packaging which improvises the internal environment by soaking gases from the packaging headspace, antimicrobial food packaging and ethylene scavenging packaging, and that includes metal and metal oxide nano-particles like the silver and zinc oxide.
Other latest advances discussed included antioxidant emitting packaging that enhances the quality and shelf life of food and beverage and intelligent packaging that shows when a product is reaching the end of its usable shelf life by changing colour. Data carrier packaging is being made for use in identification and anti-theft purposes.
Present safety and regulatory issues are discussed greatly, and finally, hurdles and future opportunities in the areas of polymer composite food packaging are provided in detail by the researchers. One such research gap identified by the study is the present lack of antiviral packaging, even though enteric viruses are a chief cause of disease.
Provided the urgent need to enhance food security and safety as well as alleviate the environmental impact of polymer-formed food packaging, innovative polymer composite food packaging is a crucial centre of focus in materials sciences and the food and beverage industry.
(The author is founder, Packman Packaging)
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