SUPRABARRIER — SUPRAmolecular polyolefins as oxygen BARRIER materials

Results in brief

SUPRAmolecular polyolefins as oxygen BARRIER materials

Addressed problem: The production of the next generation of oxygen-barrier polyolefin materials capable of meeting the current and future demands of society in a sustainable manner will require both new technologies and highly trained scientists. Supramolecular chemistry provides a powerful approach to develop new materials with emerging properties, such as low permeability to oxygen, maintaining easy processing. Importance for Society: Currently the world is using 28 million tons of plastics for food packaging and 6.8 million tons for healthcare applications including cosmetics, hygienic, packaging and components. At present, these polymers are used in multilayer films or metallized plastic films to decrease their oxygen permeability. These kind of packaging are expensive and present severe recycling problems. Packaging materials with high oxygen barrier are necessary to prevent food decomposition and consequently wastage. Besides its environmental cost, food wastage represents also a loss of economic value. Based on 2009 producer prices on a global scale, the economic cost of the overall amount of food wastage in year 2007 was about 750 billion USD. Overall objectives: the developed solutions, namely the introduction of H-bonding units and sol-gel coating, ehnanced the oxygen barrier properties of polyolefins in presence of high humidity content. As further outcome, the development of new reversible cross-links for polyolefins allowed the generation of new polyolifin vitrimers, i.e. polyolefins which are thermoplastic in the melt and thermoset in the solid state. Moreover, the industrially relevant reactive extrusion process for the preparation of these materials has been implemented. At the educational level, both PhD students completed their PhD tenure and their research activity was positively evaluated by external reviewers.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

The production of the next generation of oxygen-barrier polyolefins materials capable of meeting the current and future demands of society in a sustainable manner will require both new technologies and highly trained scientists. Supramolecular chemistry provides a powerful approach to develop new materials with emerging properties, such as low permeability to oxygen, maintaining easy processing. The SUPRABARRIER EID ITN will train a new generation of European scientists with the skills necessary to overcome such future demands and simultaneously develop new strategies for the production of new polymeric systems, which greatly impact important fields such as food and medical packaging. The EID proponents are experts in the areas of supramolecular chemistry and polymer production. Expertise of the partners encompasses the general areas of supramolecular and polymer chemistry, with individual research competencies focusing on a number of specific themes including non-covalent chemistry, supramolecular interactions, polymer blending, polymer processing, polymer production, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis and characterisation techniques of complex polymeric and self-assembled materials. The complementarity and diversity realized in synthesis, analysis, development, production and applications is crucial for successful research, innovation and training in this area. The partner from the private sector will extend the fellows’ training beyond that of traditional academic settings, in particular he will have the critical role of bridging fundamental science with application and commercialisation of the results. Our activities will thus possess both breadth and quality that can only be achieved through an interdisciplinary Academy/Industrial European effort.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PARMA · PARMACoordinatorItaly
SABIC PETROCHEMICALS BV · SittardNetherlands
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN · EindhovenNetherlands
THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGEUnited Kingdom

SUPRABARRIER · SUPRAmolecular polyolefins as oxygen BARRIER materials

Results in brief

SUPRAmolecular polyolefins as oxygen BARRIER materials

Project objective

Participants

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