Development of a pectin-based oxygen barrier coating for food packaging applications
2025
Ffyon Moody | Andrew Claypole | Jenny Woods | Ben Clifford | Qiuyun Liu | Craig Hardwick | Chris Phillips | Davide Deganello
Flexible food packaging films are challenging to recycle due to the complex multi-layer structures required for barrier properties for food protection, in a thin, transparent yet mechanically strong system. This work explores pectin as a bioderived oxygen barrier coating for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films as a potential use case for meat packaging, targeting an oxygen transmission rate (OTR) below 1 cm3/m2.day.atm. Water-based coatings based on pectin were developed and deposited onto PET film. These coatings provided a viable oxygen barrier, reducing the OTR of 12 µm PET film from around 90 cm3/m2.day.atm when uncoated to ∼2-4 cm3/m2.day.atm when coated, a result comparable with ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) currently in commercial use. Additionally, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and graphene oxide (GO) were individually investigated as additives. GO addition was effective (OTR ≤0.7 cm3/m2.day.atm), but at the expense of reduced transparency. IPA addition resulted in the highest oxygen barrier with an OTR of ≤0.22 cm3/m2.day.atm. The tested pectin coatings were demonstrated to be water washable, allowing easy removal, leaving clean PET film for convenient recycling. This opens new opportunities for the use of PET as a viable thin film for packaging.
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