March 6, 2018
New Polyhydroxybutyrate Film Shows Promise for Biodegredability
New Polyhydroxybutyrate Film Shows Promise for Biodegredability
A collaboration between Russian and Italian researchers is working on a new biodegradable polymer film that could potentially offer an environmentally friendly alternative to current films. Using a material called polyhydroxybutyrate, this new experimental film can break down over a time period of one month to one year. The material is already found naturally, so there’s already some precedent for the material degrading in a natural ecosystem. A key part to this material is the permeability, which allows it to properly protect food and helps it to degrade later on. While there’s still work to be done on this project, the early results suggest that polyhydroxybutyrate would be good for plastic films.
March 13, 2018
Antimicrobial Food Packaging Increases Food Safety and Shelf Life
The European Union-funded NanoPack Project has had a successful first round of laboratory testing, which is very good news for the future of food packaging. The project is aiming to develop antimicrobial polymer film, which can fight off toxins in food from growing and developing. In one test, scientists who used the film on bread inoculated with mold spores were able to completely prevent the mold from growing any further for nearly four weeks. While the tests so far have only been performed on bread, scientists are confident that this antimicrobial polymer film will be able to achieve the same results with other types of food.
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