Project description
Food packaging with biodegradable materials
To preserve the environment, the food packaging industry is undergoing a transformation with the development of advanced bio-based and biodegradable materials. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are good candidates, but moisture uptake and insufficient barrier properties have limited their use as food packaging materials, preventing them from being widely adopted as a replacement for conventional polymers. The EU-funded BioBarr project aims to enhance the barrier functionalities of PHAs and validate new materials for the packaging of selected bakery products intended as “case studies,” with the aim of increasing their shelf life. To improve barrier performance for food packaging applications, BioBarr will explore various surface treatments as well as a new technique by laminating PHAs with polylactic acid.
Objective
BioBarr concerns the development of new bio-based and biodegradable food packaging materials by enhancing barrier functionalities to the biopolymer PHAs (polyhydroxyalkanoates) and by validating the new material in the food industry environment.
PHAs is potential substitute for conventional polymers, since they possess similar properties; respect to polylactic acid (the most widespread biobased/biodegradable material), PHAs show higher biodegradability and better functional properties and mechanical strength.
However, applications of PHAs as food packaging materials are subjected to some limitations. PHA shows medium values of O2 and H2O transmittance while many the most critical factors for some foods (such dry products as bakeries) in relation to packaging are moisture uptake leading to loss of crispiness and oxidation of fats.
For overcoming this limiting factor in PHA food applications, BioBarr aims to enhance PHA vapour and gas barrier properties through material functionalization.
In the first research line, the approach consists of the use of biodegradable materials with adequate properties to be compounded in multi-layer structures specific for the food product category to be packed, in order to optimize functional properties. The innovation consists of laminating PHA with PLA (polylactic acid).
The second challenging research line in BioBarr is surface treatments (nanoform metallization with AlOx or SiOx or metallization Aluminum process) of PHA films.
New materials will be validated on a restricted number of food products in the sector of bakery, representative of different shelf-life requirements and duration, with the purpose to increase shelf-life at least by 10%.
Final impact will be the creation of a new biobased value chain. Proposal takes into account the needs and the growth opportunities of actors operating in each value chain step: bioplastic producer, extrusion and filming actors, converter, inks producers, food industries end-users
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterialsbioplasticspolylactic acid
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesfood technologyfood packaging
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterialsbioplasticspolyhydroxyalkanoates
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybioprocessing technologiesfermentation
Programme(s)
Coordinator
20124 Milano
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.