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Journal articles
Adhesion with purpose: The value of primers in sustainable flexible packaging, TAPPI Journal July 2025
ABSTRACT: Primers play a crucial role in flexible packaging by providing adhesion, enhancing performance, and improving the overall quality of packaging structures. As the packaging industry shifts towards more sustainable solutions, it brings new challenges for meeting adhesion requirements. Different types of sustainable materials, with their complicated physical and chemical properties, usually result in poor adhesion in extrusion coating or extrusion lamination, whether this is due to fast crystallization, secondary crystallization, low processing temperature, lack of functional groups, or a combination thereof. Water-based primers ensure that these innovations meet both functional and environmental standards for the packaging of tomorrow. Conventional water-based primers, including polyethyleneimine (PEI) and ethylene acrylic acid (EAA), offer significant advantages in sustainable packaging design by chemically modifying the surface of the substrate to enhance adhesion. In this study, we will discuss adhesion issues in three case studies involving sustainable packaging materials: (1) extrusion coating of polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) on paper; (2) extrusion lamination of paper and metallized film with starch biopolymer; and (3) extrusion coating of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) on paper. These cases represent three adhesion challenges related to sustainable materials, namely fast crystallization rate, low processing temperature, and secondary crystallization. A three-step adhesion improvement procedure was employed to identify the proper primer in each case study. This procedure included a wetting-out test with primer, an adhesion test, and an extrusion test with priming. In our results, strong fiber tearing or destructive bonds were achieved in each case with the help of water-based primers. These results demonstrate the value of water-based primers in enabling the transition to more sustainable packaging structures without compromising performance.
Journal articles
Technical Evaluation: Methods for Sealing Paper/Foil Aseptic
Technical Evaluation: Methods for Sealing Paper/Foil Aseptic Food Packages, 1996 Polymers, Laminations & Coatings Conference Proceedings
Journal articles
Techniques for package printing and design, September 1988, TAPPI Journal 88SEP137
Techniques for package printing and design, TAPPI JOURNAL September 1988
Journal articles
Extruder temperature control with adaptive reset, TAPPI JOURNAL, February 1996, Vol. 79(2)
Extruder temperature control with adaptive reset, TAPPI JOURNAL, February 1996, Vol. 79(2)
Journal articles
Recycling laminated flexible-packaging materials, TAPPI JOURNAL, March 1996, Vol. 79(3)
Recycling laminated flexible-packaging materials, TAPPI JOURNAL, March 1996, Vol. 79(3)
Journal articles
Computer simulation of film blowing, TAPPI JOURNAL, August 1996, Vol.79(8)
Computer simulation of film blowing, TAPPI JOURNAL, August 1996, Vol.79(8)
Journal articles
Flexible nonwoven composites for food packaging, TAPPI JOURNAL, May 1991, Vol. 74(5)
Flexible nonwoven composites for food packaging, TAPPI JOURNAL, May 1991, Vol. 74(5)
Magazine articles
Shop talk: concerning coefficient of friction, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 2000, Vol. 83(6)
Shop talk: concerning coefficient of friction, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 2000, Vol. 83(6)
Journal articles
Lamination study of ink jet media, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 2000, Vol. 83(6)
Lamination study of ink jet media, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 2000, Vol. 83(6)
Journal articles
Designing packages for fresh-cut produce, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 1996, Vol. 79(6)
Designing packages for fresh-cut produce, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 1996, Vol. 79(6)