High gas barrier distillation food transparent packaging film come out

Kuraray developed Kuraray Star, a transparent film with high gas barrier properties for distilling food packaging. This transparent film has a 1 μm thick barrier layer on both sides of a 12 μm thick PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film. The daily oxygen permeability is less than 1 cc/m2, which is about half that of ordinary distilling food packaging films. The company will invest 1 billion yen in its Yushima business office (in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture) and build a new production line. Mass production will begin in July 2006. The annual production capacity is 50 million m2.

The newly developed barrier layer uniformly distributes nano-sized silica (SiO2) in the amorphous portion of the existing polymer material. "Oxygen can pass through the amorphous part of the polymer material. If silica particles are distributed in the amorphous part, the oxygen transmission path will become long and complicated, and thus the oxygen permeation amount can be controlled." (Kuraray). However, due to factors such as patents, the details of various types of polymer materials, the size of silica particles, and lamination methods were not disclosed.

Conventional packaging films such as EVOH resin (ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer) generally suffer from a problem of reduced gas barrier properties after heat sterilization treatment (distillation treatment) at 135°C for 60 minutes. The new barrier layer maintains good gas barrier properties even after distillation. It also has high transparency and exhibits good secondary processability that can be printed on the film surface and laminated.

At present, the mainstream distilling food packaging material is a laminated film using aluminum foil. However, in view of the fact that the laminated resin film of the barrier layer has the following features: (1) It is possible to put a whole bag of food in a microwave oven; (2) to use a metal detector for foreign matter inspection; (3) to incinerate without residue; More applications. The company established the "Kuraray Star Project Promotion Team" on September 1, 2005, and will actively promote this new type of film to the market in the future. It is estimated that sales will reach 300 million yen in 2006 and 1.8 billion yen in 2008.

Source: China Institute of Science and Technology Information