Improving Barrier Performance of Coated Paper and Paperboard Using Multi-Layer Approach, TAPPICon25

Market demand for barrier coated packaging paper and paperboard has been on the steady rise and forecasted to increase further. As a result, there is a continued interest in improving barrier coating functionalities, which is currently an active area of investigation. In this work, a multilayer approach was adopted that involved applying a biowax emulsion, latex, or a combination of biowax and latex top coating layer on to the kaolin/latex (20/80, 50/50, 65/35, or 70/30) precoated SBS (Solid Bleached Sulfate) paperboard. Our main objective was to demonstrate the effect of these top coating layers on various barrier properties, especially water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) at high humidity and high temperature (38°C; 90% RH) tropical/jungle test conditions.

While the top coat with latex and/or biowax showed dramatic improvement in both water resistance (Cobb) and WVTR, the biowax coating increased contact angle significantly compared to the latex top coat. Contact angle increased from about 65° for the latex top coat to as high as 96° for the biowax top coat. Generally, it is much more difficult to improve WVTR at the jungle conditions below 100 g/m2-day even with the high aspect ratio platy pigment. However, using the coating strategies adopted in this study, we were able to achieve WVTR values notably below 50 g/m2-day at the tropical test conditions and significant improvements in regards to fold crack barrier integrity at high kaolin clay usage.

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