The project ran between November 2022 and May 2023.
Together with Billerud, RISE has developed bio-based barrier materials, which can offer sustainable alternatives to the fossil-based that are commonly used in packaging today and reduce the carbon emissions. The purpose of this project was to test the hypothesis that an aqueous barrier formulation, comprised of a starch matrix and graphene additives, can be implemented in coating machines on semi-pilot scale and coated on paper for packaging applications.
Figure 1. Pictures from the coating trials at Billerud’s facility. a) Paper roll coated with starch-based barrier formulations with and without graphene additives. b) Blank paper sheet (left), paper sheet with starch (center), paper sheet with starch and graphene additive (right).
RISE developed the starch-based barrier formulations with graphene and designed an industrially relevant method to facilitate litre-scale preparation. Billerud performed coating trials of the resulting barrier formulations on paper in one of their coating machines. The project demonstrated that the coating on paper was industrially viable. The project furthermore demonstrated that the graphene in free-standing films from such barrier formulations, improved the barrier properties of starch against both oxygen and water vapor. Hence, all project goals were met, and the hypothesis is successfully confirmed, which motivates a continuation in a future project.
Participants
RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and Billerud.
Budget
The project’s total budget was 1M SEK.