Licensing Active Barrier Coating Technology Protecting Food Packaging Materials From Mineral Oil Contamination

A Technology

SpecialChem client is offering a proprietary ‘active barrier’ coating technology to suppress mineral oil impurities in recycled paper-based products. The active barrier coating technology attenuate mineral oil in recycled fiber used to manufacture cardboard. The ‘active barrier’ coating for recycled paper or cardboard packaging is applied as an aqueous backside board coating at the mill or off-line at converter.

Cardboard made of recycled paper is used in food packaging. Recycled paper and board including printed newspaper may contain a variety of residual volatiles or migrants, collectively referred to as mineral oil, that outgas from the recycled packaging providing a source of unwanted indirect contamination to foodstuff. Technical grade mineral oils stem from ink which is commonly used in newspaper printing and other printed materials that are used as sources for recycled content fiber. If food is packaged in cardboard packaging systems produced from recycled fiber, it is possible that mineral oil can migrate from the packaging causing indirect tainting of foodstuff.

Traces of mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons, including paraffins and cyclic naphthenes have been identified in numerous dry foodstuffs such as rice, flour, semolina, breadcrumbs, pasta and breakfast cereals packaged in recycled paperboard packaging. As a consequence, most recycled boards used in food packaging limit their use to dry and non fatty foodstuffs. The packaging and printing industry working with the carton board recyclers and manufacturers have been cooperatively reducing the quantity of mineral oils in printing inks and in the paper and cardboard recycling chain. Food, coating and paperboard manufacturers have been investigating barriers that offer protection against the inherent risks of contamination from mineral oil when using recycled material.

A licensing and technology development company with a global patent portfolio has already-developed a proprietary ‘active barrier’ coating technology for attenuating mineral oil in recycled fiber used to manufacture cardboard. The ‘active barrier’ coating for recycled paper or cardboard packaging is applied as an aqueous dispersion.

Characteristics of coating technology include the following:


• Safe for food contact
• A sustainable solution allowing short-term implementation
• Low cost
• Applied as aqueous backside board coating at the mill or off-line at converter
• Dry coating weights vary according to coating method and desired product requirements but general is 5 - 7 g/m²
• High capacity to absorb mineral oil including paraffins (straight chain and branched alkanes - MOSH) and aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH)
• Barrier technology enables attenuation of other off-odor/taste substances that make their way into foodstuffs from the recycled packaging
• Shown to measurably reduce mineral oil migration in recycled newsprint paperboard tested using modified polyphenylene oxide (MPPO – Tenax) placed on the material during 10 days at 40oC (e.g. Aurela et al. 1999)
• Coating compatible with current recycling processes for paperboard
• Dry coating is colorless or neutral.

Our client wishes to get responses from principals only rather than agents who will add the technology to their list…

The goal of this request is to identify parties (coating manufacturers, recycled content manufacturers or other interested parties) that are interested in manufacturing the coating and entering new markets, mills interested in using the coating in production and major food manufacturers interested in collaborating.

• Industry our client is in: Coating
• Annual Revenue: Ownership by Forbes listed company
• Years in Business: 14
• Headquarters Area (NAFTA / EUROPE / ASIA…):NAFTA