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As metallized polymer films such as oriented Polypropylene (oPP) or Polyester (PET) provide improved performance in terms of oxygen, water, and aroma barrier, they become a more interesting alternative to aluminum foil. Cost, performance , and ecological reasons are listed as reasons that push the metallized film as a replacement for foil. This pre...
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... Does the film provide any cost savings? Table 1 lists some of the metallized oPP and PET films that compete against aluminum foil. As one can see, metallized film does offer cost and yield advantages of up to 30% and more, depending on the type of foil replaced and the replacement film used. ...Similar publications
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... Sealability is obtained by the use of polyethylene or propylene-ethylene co-polymers, whereas barrier properties are obtained with acrylics or ethylene vinyl alcohol [21]. Such an improvement, accompanied by a barrier against UV light, can also be achieved with metallization (with aluminum) or lamination with aluminum foil [22]. These films can be used for the production of disposable food containers, mainly bags or pouches, as sealed wrappings, as overwraps with meals placed on plastic trays, in cartonboard containers or as lidding on them [19]. ...
Food is an integral part of everyone’s life. Disposable food serving utensils and tableware are a very convenient solution, especially when the possibility of the use of traditional dishes and cutlery is limited (e.g., takeaway meals). As a result, a whole range of products is available on the market: plates, trays, spoons, forks, knives, cups, straws, and more. Both the form of the product (adapted to the distribution and sales system) as well as its ecological aspect (biodegradability and life cycle) should be of interest to producers and consumers, especially considering the clearly growing trend of “eco-awareness”. This is particularly important in the case of single-use products. The aim of the study was to present the current trends regarding disposable utensils intended for contact with food in the context of their biodegradability. This paper has summarized not only conventional polymers but also their modern alternatives gaining the attention of manufacturers and consumers of single-use products (SUPs).
... The foil layer in most laminates is around 7 m-9 m in thickness, so pinholes are often present, leading to some transmission of gasses. Foil also allows very minimal transmission of light (Decker et al., 2004). Even with small pinholes, aluminum foil is an excellent barrier and this is why it was the first high barrier material for flexible food packaging. ...
... Although aluminum foil sounds like the perfect barrier material to prevent food spoilage in packaging, there are downfalls. Aluminum foil used in flexible, multilayer packaging has low crease resistance which can lead to cracks and pinholes (loss of barrier properties), it is difficult to recycle when in laminate form, it is susceptible to tearing at thinner gauges, and material use is high compared to other barrier layer options (Decker et al., 2004). Due to these drawbacks, metallized polymer films are frequently used as alternatives to foil as the barrier layer in flexible packaging and have been since the 1970s (Petrie, 2006). ...
... In all cases, metallized films are said to save on costs associated with processing and materials as well as with energy. Some research suggests that there are three major requirements that must be fulfilled in order to replace foil with metallized film: function, economics, and feasibility (Decker et al., 2004). This implies that the metallized film must provide the properties delivered by aluminum foil in an economical manner, and the film must be able to run on the same equipment as foil in manufacturing. ...
This study investigated the potential environmental impacts of three industrial used barrier films, namely, aluminum foil, metallized oriented polypropylene (MOPP) and metallized polyethylene terephthalate (MPET). These three materials are the most commonly used barrier materials in flexible packaging applications. But little to no data is available to compare the environment impact between these three high-volume and fast-moving materials. With the use of SimaPro 8, the environmental impacts of three laminates, centered with aluminum foil, MOPP and MPET, were assessed over the raw material, processing, and end of life phases. The use phase was assessed in part to facilitate recommendation and interpretations. Compared to the aluminum foil centered laminate, the metallized polymer centered laminates reduced impact to metal depletion by 71% for the MOPP laminate and 52% for the MPET laminate. Fossil depletion was reduced by 21% for both metallized polymer laminates and global warming potential is half that of the aluminum foil laminate. Non-renewable embodied energy was reduced by 25–26% compared to foil. The findings will help food and flexible packaging companies visualize environment impacts of the three barrier alternatives in addition to performance and cost.
Going flexible seems to be a major trend for a variety of electronic applications such as displays, printed circuit boards, solar cells, and solid-state lighting. Driving forces, which may often include the function of "flexibility," are the potential to build units with less thickness and with less weight or the ability for very-large-area applications. Last but not least, there is the need for a remarkable reduction of production costs, which can be fulfilled by changing the production process from sheet processing to roll to roll. The first vacuum web coater was built 70 years ago, and vacuum web coating is currently used for a wide variety of applications. In the packaging industry, aluminum coating is primarily used for barrier improvement of plastic substrates. Such coatings are deposited with an evaporation process in machines of up to 4-m coating widths on rolls up to 60 000-m length and at coating speeds of more than 16 m/s. For capacitor production, thin webs with thicknesses down to the submicrometer range are vacuum-coated with aluminum, silver, or zinc layers, and uncoated stripes or patterns are also needed. Vacuum-coated web-shaped substrates can also be used for antireflective, antistatic function in the front of monitors, as window films for cars and architectural applications or as front electrodes for touch panels as a few examples. Different coating tools such as evaporation, sputtering, plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition (PECVD), as well as pretreatment tools and inline layer measurement systems are available. Many of the currently available tools and processes existing in the web coating industry may become useful for upcoming electronic applications, but special demands for these new applications, such as exact area tracking, zero defects, roll-to-roll masking, and reduced substrate temperature during coating, require further development of machine design and process technology. This paper will summarize the state of the art of vacuum w
