Biodegradable food packaging materials

A joint venture between Earthshell and DuPont Packaging and Industrial Polymers is focusing on the sandwich packaging market. DuPont has achieved a global sales right for food packaging that has a US$1 billion annual sales volume, thanks to the addition of DuPont's Biomax polyester to Earthshell's formulation, which can be produced on existing blown film and laminating equipment.
This new biodegradable thermoplastic material has excellent foldability, flexibility, ease of printing, and moisture protection. It has been tested in several cities and eight national parks and is expected to replace other paper-based disposable food packaging products.
Jakhn nevling, Earthshell's product manager, believes that replacing hot beverage cups made of synthetic materials with EPS and paper packaging materials is attracting more and more interest. The contracts signed with SWEETHEART include cups and other rigid packaging materials. Synthetic material hot beverage cups save more finished products than the EPS, and they have better taste and feel. Compared to paper, it is lighter and better insulated.
Deep forming of this composite material will be a more difficult problem than other hard materials. In the vacuum forming process of the biodegradable film lining, it is necessary to maintain the same wall thickness to avoid wrinkling. Composite hot beverage cups are stronger than other materials because the film forms a continuous film layer that reinforces the bottom layer of the packaging material where it can easily crack and appear small holes.
At the same time, the hard sheet produced by Earthshell is being tested to see if it can replace the use of packaging board in the food and non-food industries. Others such as using plastic materials through the injection molding process to produce disposable knife, fork Work on spoons, spoons and coffee blenders is also in progress.