High Barrier Packaging : Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, 1999 Polymers, Laminations & Coatings Conference Proceedings

Aaron L. Brody, Ph.D., Managing Director, Rubbright•Brody, Inc.

Gene Strupinsky, Vice President—Research & Market Development

for Plastics and Packaging, Rubbright•Brody, Inc.

Defined as plastic package structures capable of blocking the passage of oxygen, barriers have experienced a

checkered history. Developed originally as substitutes for the venerable glass and metal, they generally did not meet

the content requirements. When higher performance polymers were capable of being incorporated into all-plastic

structures, newly recognized challenges of residual oxygen emerged.

Simultaneously, the food industry began its thrust towards truncated distribution which reduced some end-user requirements. Today’s needs appear to be for holistic packaging that tightly integrates product distribution and final user requirements with package structures—in which the material is one essential element. Tomorrow’s “barrier” package structures must quantitatively incorporate contributions from all sources to optimize product content quality retention.