New Barrier Coating Prevents Cartonboard Mineral Oil Migration

Mayr-Melnhof Karton, Vienna, Austria, reportedly has developed a board range, called Foodboard, that has a new, innovative barrier on its reverse side, preventing migration of mineral oils (from newspaper and packaging printing inks) into cartonboard packed foodstuff. The board's effectiveness, according to a report by International Paper Board Industry (IPBI), June 2011 issue, has been confirmed in first industrial runs by the international migration research center, FABES (Forschungs-GmbH for Analytic and Evaluation of Diffusion Processes, Munich, Germany) headed by Dr Otto Piringer. According to Dr. Piringer, "by applying the barrier board, less than 1% of the potential migrating substances into Tenax were measured compared with the extracted initial quantity."

As a result, migration is blocked by more than 99% and is always below the often mentioned safety limit of 0.6 mg/kg for mineral oils, provided the Foodboard applications are according to intended use, the IPBI article explains. The new innovative barrier provides not only comprehensive protection against migration of mineral oils from the printed box, but also from the outer and transport packaging (cross-contamination),the IPBI report notes. Demand from the food industry and retailers will determine capacity requirements and corresponding investment.

TAPPI
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