Optimised moulded pulp for renewable packaging solutions

ended

The aim of PULPACKTION project is to develop cellulose-based tailored-to-purpose packaging solutions for specific food and electronic packaging applications which needs medium and high barrier requirement’s and that nowadays are packing in polymer fossil based solutions. This innovation will take advantage of the flexibility in the wet-moulding production of wood pulp based materials. Different types of wood pulp will be combined to prepare slurries for wet-moulding applications. These slurries will be additivated with biopolymers and other bio-based compounds in order to tailor the final properties of the resulting wet-moulded materials. By tailoring the composition of the wet mouldable slurry, a wide range of final properties in the resulting dry material will be achieved. This flexible packaging manufacturing system will be combined with 100% bio-based coatings and films on the cellulose-based substrate. To fulfil the properties required for PULPACKTION’s specific packaging applications using a fully bio-based approach, additional barriers will be implemented onto the wet moulded substrate. For this purpose, new bio-based polymer blends will be optimized. These new blends, containing biopolymers such as thermoplastic starch (TPS), poly (lactic acid) (PLA), other bio-additives, and reinforcements such as microfibrillated cellulose (MFC), will be processed into multilayer films, composites and coatings. In this manner, not only coatings for improved barrier properties, but also 100% bio-based films for packages’ top lids will be produced. Therefore, a final 100% bio-biobased integral packaging solution with similar properties to existing fossil-based packaging solutions will be achieved.