Recyclable High-Barrier Paper-Based Flexible Packaging Solution – A Collaborative Effort

Presented by Dr. Carolin Struller, BOBST

Over the past four years, BOBST has been working in collaboration with its partners to develop and bring to the market sustainable flexible packaging solutions. The main focus of this work was on recyclable and recycling-ready mono-material polymer and mono-material paper-based solutions with high and ultra-high barrier performance.

For this presentation, we will look at the work conducted in order to develop paper-based solutions, which are based on metallized but also AlOx coating in order to crate barrier functionality. The presentation will cover the challenges experienced during the vacuum coating process of paper as well as our developments to overcome these. Furthermore, we will discuss the measurements and analysis required in order to ensure good performance and quality of the vacuum coated paper, including testing for pinholes, adhesion and barrier properties. Finally, also the recyclability of the paper solution will be presented.