3 Most Important Masterbatches for Food Packaging Solutions

Plastics have infiltrated in every aspect of modern life. We can find products made of polymers in household items, health care, construction, automotive parts to aeroplane accessories. It resurrects a feeling that plastics are ubiquitous and we can’t imagine a modern life with it.

Why are plastics getting popular in today’s market?

The primary reason for gaining popularity of polymeric products is their versatility. The raw polymers are natural to mould into different shapes giving a lightweight, durable and useful items. We can find plastics items in the bedroom to construction materials in use to improve the quality of life. Products have entrenched in every aspect of our lives.

Plastic and packaging solutions

Like it or not, we live in a world where people judge the quality of products seeing the cover. The success of a consumer product depends on the quality of packaging design, colour and other properties. In other words, consumers get influenced by the appearance of the package design to a large extent.

Plastics have extensive use in the packaging solution of food beverage, health care, and others. Smooth application of polymers for packaging products can be possible due to use quality colour masterbatches and additives in manufacturing.

Polymeric items get their needed qualities, colour, and special effects due to the use of suitable masterbatches. However, the loading and grade of a masterbatch are taken based on the requirement of consumer items. In other words, without colour masterbatches and additives, no functionalities or properties will come to a plastic product.

Let us look at the three most popular masterbatches in the packaging and printing industry -

BOPP Masterbatch

BOPP stands for Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene. It is a thermoplastic polymer found in clear, white and matte finishes. The film is economical to use with high conformability and fatigue resistance making it ideal for packaging solutions like labelling and graphics applications. In most of the solutions, products require moisture resistance, optical clarity, and high tensile strength.

The BOPP masterbatch enhances properties of the film using in the coating, laminating, and other packaging solutions. That is why this masterbatch is usable in the manufacturing of food and beverage packaging, medical packaging, and personal care products.

BOPET Masterbatch

BOPP film is a PET polymer, a linear thermoplastic polyester resin. The film is a flexible, explicit, and transparent material. The PET film is a bit expensive as it has high tensile strength, durability, heat resistance, dimensional stability, chemical resistance and other properties. All these functionalities help in creating an excellent product for end users.

However, the film properties get enhanced with a BOPET masterbatch, and it also acts as a slippage agent and colour additives on the carrier resin. The nature of this masterbatch is decided to depend on the expected outcome on the end plastics. We can use this masterbatch in food packaging applications, electrical insulation and printing sheets in industries.

TPU masterbatch

TPU stands for Thermoplastic Polyurethane. It is a film extruded with polyester, polyether and polycaprolactone with full industrial applications. That is because the film has a hardness and high elasticity bridging the gap between rubber and plastics in industries. However, with the change in base chemical, the physical properties of the TPU substrate also alter.

However, this problem negates with the use of TPU masterbatch in plastic manufacturing. It offers UV protection on the finished articles of automotive, textile and medical applications.

Conclusion

The above masterbatches play crucial roles in the packaging solution of many industries. Companies must choose the best products to get the desired quality of consumers items for commercial success.