Suitability of poly(butylene succinate) as a coating for paperboard convenience food packaging

ABSTRACT

Take out and convenience food packaging has seen rapid growth in recent years, particularly in the last few months due to restrictions of in-restaurant dining. Paper-based packaging is often thought to be a more sustainable option to plastics. However, paper-based food packaging materials generally require supplemental treatments, such as applications of perfluorinated chemicals and petroleum-based plastics to improve performance. These are effective but limit sustainable end-of-life options (e.g., recycling and composting). Landfill diversion strategies are needed to divert food packaging waste as consumer demand for ready-to-eat (RTE) convenience meal kits and single-use packaging continues to increase municipal solid waste accumulation. This investigation evaluated the suitability of poly(butylene succinate; PBS) as a direct-melt coating on recycled paperboard for grease resistance in microwave rapid reheat and heat and hold convenience food packaging applications. This research demonstrates PBS as a viable alternative to perfluorinated chemicals and petroleum polymers with a more sustainable end-of-life option due to its oil migration resistance at elevated temperatures and compostability properties.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable
• compostable
• microwave
• poly(butylene succinate)
• packaging

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Alexandra Ivey and Dr. William Colona of Iowa State University for their valuable input into this work and guidance for testing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

Data availability statement

Data will be made available upon request to the corresponding author at https://[email protected].

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Polymer and Food Protection Consortium at Iowa State University and the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa and Project No. IOW04202 Accession # 1021300 by the Hatch Act and State of Iowa. The authors would like to thank InnoPak, LLC., Thermo Fisher Scientific, GC Innovations America, and Mitsubishi Chemical for their generous support;U.S. Department of Agriculture [IOW04202]

Notes on contributors

Henry Thurber

Henry Thurber is an undergraduate student studying Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University. He is an undergraduate research assistant in the Polymer and Food Protection Consortium at Iowa State University.

Greg W. Curtzwiler

Dr. Greg W. Curtzwiler is an Assistant Professor in the Polymer and Food Protection Consortium at Iowa State University. His research is focused on commercially viable sustainable materials for adhesives and coatings in the packaging and automotive industries including bio-based, compostable, and recycled polymers. He is currently working on understanding the structure–property relationships between renewably sourced biobased polymers, hydroplasticization, and compatibilization of biobased waste diverted fillers for adhesives and coatings.