VTT PILOTS CELLULOSE AS ALTERNATIVE TO RIGID POLYPROPYLENE PACKAGING

Finnish researchers have developed highly extensible, formable, cellulose-based webs that they say offer a sustainable alternative to plastic in rigid packaging applications.

“Polypropylene film is one of the world’s most used polymers. ... Our invention now offers a viable, sustainable alternative on the market,” says Jarmo Kouko, research team leader at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The nonprofit VTT did the development work as a part of a research program, via which it cooperated with 54 companies and the Regional Council of Central Finland to create promising, up-scaled alternatives for plastic products. Their pilot-scale efforts yielded unprecedented maximum limits of its highly extensible formable cellulose-based webs.

Typical commercial boards have between 3-6% extensibility (measured via geometrical mean) with the best such boards having 10-18% extensibility. But VTT says that by using foam forming technology, it has now obtained up to 30% extensibility. This enables brand owners to use rigid, cardboard-like packaging to serve consumers looking to buy more sustainable products.

For example, VTT suggests, this could enable food brands making cold cuts to increase cardboard-like package size to 200-250 grams from 75 grams. Users could produce even larger cardboard-like packages by adjusting the tray forming process and tray dimensions.

Kouko said his team is excited about the commercial potential of its rigid, cellulose-based packaging. “In industries that use huge amounts of plastic like the food packaging sector,” he said, “we can find plenty of opportunities to reduce the use of fossil-fuel-based materials and replace them with sustainable ones that take us closer to carbon-neutral societies of the future and allow us to be more frugal with natural resources.”

He sees VTT’s cellulose-based material as a sustainable and affordable alternative to single-use plastic. This is particularly important, he notes, given the ongoing legislative efforts to curb the use of certain polymers.