A Simple Method for Polymer Screening for Selection of Food Packaging Material

Abstract

The requirements and specifications of food packaging materials are continuously increasing, e.g., due to new regulations. Selection of a proper material is a multi-criteria decision, and various aspects must be considered. In this work, a simple methodology is proposed for polymer screening for food packaging applications. The methodology accounts for migration risk and permeability to oxygen and volatile flavor compounds based on the Hansen Solubility Parameters (HSPs). In addition, the glass transition temperature (Tg), as well as the storage temperature of the food and the maximum exposure temperature of the material (e.g., in the case of hot filling), are taken into account. Based on these data, for a given food and for each polymer, five sub-scores are calculated. For a given food, 22 polymers are ranked according to their total score, which is derived as the sum of the five sub-scores. However, the final material selection is not based solely on the total score, since the sub-scores provide insights regarding the specific advantages and disadvantages of each polymer to be used as packaging for a given food. The proposed methodology can assist in recognizing proper candidate polymers, exclude polymers that for a given food would be clearly unsuitable and even design multi-layered composites with improved properties. One of the basic assumptions of the proposed methodology is that food–polymer interactions are important for assessing migration risk. Migration tests in two different food simulants were used for a preliminary support of this assumption.