Low cost eco-friendly polyethylene film for packaging of wheat flour

Abstract

At present polymer packaging industry is compelled to use PET based polymeric materials tomanufacture packaging materials for food packaging including wheat flour. Though these PET basedmaterials possess the required properties these materials are very expensive and non recyclable.Therefore many researchers are investigating the possibilities of manufacturing polyethylene basedpackaging materials, which are ceo-friendly to replace expensive PET based materials.

In this study an effort was made to identity good quality low cost eco-friendly products for packagingof wheat flour. The trials were carried out using different blends ofLLDPE, LPDE and high molecularweight PE. In this study packaging materials were produced using the multi-layer co-extrusiontechnique. Both field trials and laboratory trials were used to analyze the samples. As the mostefficient packaging system for flour is form-fill seal machine system, prepared samples was sent topackaging plants to check whether the sample was able to reach the required runability at form-fillseal machine. The physical properties such as tensile strength tear strength and puncture resistancewere measured. Depend on observed values PE blends were gauging down to minimum tolerancelimit to contain up to Ikg relative dense products. The Water Vapor Transmission Rate (WVTR) ofthe fi lm also measured because the shelf life of wheat products very heavily depends on its wateractivity. Finally a low cost eco-friendly PE based packaging material for wheat flour was developed.