Utility of Polyolefin Plastomers and Ethylene Acrylic Acid Copolymers in Applications Requiring Dissimilar Sealants, 1997 Polymers, Laminations & Coatings Conference Proceedings

In flexible packaging applications, such as composite can liner/lidding and forming/non-forming web combinations, sometimes it is desirable that dissimilar sealants be sealed to one another to take advantage of the unique properties inherent to each sealant. Sodium (Na) and zinc (Zn) - based ionomers are commonly used in applications requiring good product resistance, seal through contamination, abuse resistance (abrasion resistance, tear resistance) and, of course, strong seal strength performance to itself and to each other. In this paper, an extrusion coating grade Polyolefin Plastomer (POP) and several Ethylene Acrylic Acid copolymers (EAA) are shown to provide competitive performance as sealants, not only when sealed to themselves, but also when sealed to various Zn and Na ionomers. As a result of this study, it can be concluded that packaging converters currently using only ionomer based dissimilar sealant systems should consider the benefits of a total POP or EAA system, or a replacement of at least one of the ionomer sealants with a POP or EAA polymer for the best combination of performance and economics.