THE IMPACT OF DISPERSION BARRIER COATINGS ON WATER QUALITY AFTER RECYCLING, 23TAPPICon

Growing levels of packaging waste has become increasingly problematic globally and resulted in stricter legislation in most parts of the world. The European Union commission has recently published a new proposal to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Directive 94/62/EC) imposing significantly higher targets for recycling rates of all packaging materials, where plastics will have the largest gap to achieve. In light of this, substitution of plastics packaging with fiber-based solutions has attracted a great deal of interest. This has created a greater need for the development of functionalized barrier coatings that are recyclable within paper mills, without the need for advanced recycling processes. Water soluble, dispersion barrier coatings are becoming an attractive solution in this regard, generally enabling an efficient separation of fiber from other packaging components during recycling and a corresponding high fiber yield. Despite having a better recyclability, the downstream impacts of dispersion barriers on papermaking processes after recycling, including quality in the paper machine water circuits, process efficiency and product quality, are still not well understood.

Currently, several different methodologies exist for assessing the recyclability of fiber-based packaging, e.g. CEPI recyclability laboratory test method, PTS-RH 021:2012, INGEDE, etc. In general, these methodologies involve reslushing paper for a fixed time and rotational speed, screening the reslushed material, and assessing the accepts material in terms of yield, fiber quality, sheet inhomogeneities and adhesion tendency. However, these methods do not fully assess potential downstream impacts of dissolved substances on water quality entering the paper machine, something which may be problematic with certain barrier formulations.

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