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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
Market projections of cellulose nanomaterial-enabled products - Part 2: Volume estimates, TAPPI JOURNAL June 2014
Market projections of cellulose nanomaterial-enabled products - Part 2: Volume estimates, TAPPI JOURNAL June 2014
Journal articles
High-value adhesives for a low-cost process, TAPPI JOURNAL, August 1997, Vol. 80(8)
High-value adhesives for a low-cost process, TAPPI JOURNAL, August 1997, Vol. 80(8)
Journal articles
Improved extrudable hot-melt melt adhesive for lidding, TAPPI JOURNAL, August 1997, Vol. 80(8)
Improved extrudable hot-melt melt adhesive for lidding, TAPPI JOURNAL, August 1997, Vol. 80(8)
Journal articles
High-barrier packaging with liquid crystal polymers, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 1997, Vol. 80(6)
High-barrier packaging with liquid crystal polymers, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 1997, Vol. 80(6)
Journal articles
High-performance hot melts for bonding polar and nonpolar substrates, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 1997, Vol. 80(6)
High-performance hot melts for bonding polar and nonpolar substrates, TAPPI JOURNAL, June 1997, Vol. 80(6)
Journal articles
The effect of layer geometry on the layer adhesion of coextruded films, TAPPI JOURNAL, May 1997, Vol. 80(5)
The effect of layer geometry on the layer adhesion of coextruded films, TAPPI JOURNAL, May 1997, Vol. 80(5)
Journal articles
Formulating deep freeze hmas - a statistical approach to predict performance properties, TAPPI JOURNAL, September 1997, Vol. 80(9)
Formulating deep freeze hmas - a statistical approach to predict performance properties, TAPPI JOURNAL, September 1997, Vol. 80(9)
Journal articles
High-performance reactive hot melts, TAPPI JOURNAL, October 1994, Vol. 77(10)
High-performance reactive hot melts, TAPPI JOURNAL, October 1994, Vol. 77(10)
Journal articles
Print-registration control in a rotogravure printing press combined with extrusion-coating or lamination processes, TAPPI JOURNAL, March 1995, Vol. 78(3)
Print-registration control in a rotogravure printing press combined with extrusion-coating or lamination processes, TAPPI JOURNAL, March 1995, Vol. 78(3)