All-cellulosic packaging from cellulose nanofibrils and fatty acid esters

The developed fully biobased cellulosic material provides an environmentally benign alternative for multilayered plastic packaging solutions. It has shown to have excellent properties and markedly valuable performance suitable for food packaging applications, such as snack bags and cereal pouches. Inherently all-cellulosic material is safe, renewable, recyclable, biocompatible and biodegradable. The material is built from two different types of wood cellulose materials: enzymatically fibrillated cellulose and cellulose fatty acid esters. The fibrillated material consists of hardwood cellulose nanofibrils with high surface area and hydrophilicity. The densely packed structure of cellulose nanofibrils enables the outstanding oxygen, carbon dioxide, grease and mineral oil barrier properties. Cellulose fatty acid esters are made from the softwood cellulose functionalized with biomass based hydrophobic fatty acid. Due to the chemical structure, it forms completely transparent, flexible and smooth layers having excellent moisture barrier and heat sealability properties. These two cellulosic materials have complementary barrier properties and to reach outstanding packaging performance they have been combined into one, compostable multilayer film structure with excellent technical performance. The packaging material can be continuously processed with the semi-pilot scale equipment. Bringing into use the developed new material will diminish the use of fossil-based materials leading to enhanced climate mitigation according to circular economy principles. The advantages of the solution over currently used packaging materials are the use of sustainable and renewable raw material source and excellent performance capabilities, that lead to extended shelf life and decreased food loss