Earticle

The compression strength of corrugated fiberboard containers for packaging the agricultural products rapidly decreases because of various environmental conditions during distribution of unitized products. Among various environmental conditions, the main factors affecting the compression strength of corrugated fiberboard are absorption of moisture, long-term accumulative load, and fatigue caused by shock and vibration. An estimated rate of damage for fruit during distribution is about 30~40% owing to the shock and vibration. This study was carried out to characterize the durability of corrugated fiberboard containers for packaging the fruits and vegetables under simulated transportation environment. After the packaging freight was vibrated at various experimental conditions, the compression test for the packaging was performed. The compression strength of corrugated fiberboard containers decreased with loading weight and vibration time. The multiple nonlinear regression equation (R2 = 0.9198) for predicting the decreasing rate of compression strength of corrugated fiberboard containers were developed using four independent variables such as input acceleration level, input frequency, loading weight and vibration time.

Two kinds of polymer coating (acrylic polymer and vinyl acetate ethylene copolymer) added with 5% nisin were fabricated on the paperboards and tested in their antimicrobial activity against Micrococcus flavus ATCC 10240 inoculated into water contacting the coating at 10oC. Vinyl acetate ethylene copolymer giving faster and higher nisin migration presented the greater reduction in the microbial count than the other coating, which endorsed that the migrated nisin is mainly responsible for the microbial inhibition or destruction. There was also a slight effect of the coating polymer itself in the microbial inhibition.

For screening test of the non-volatile compounds which migrate from food packaging materials into foodstuffs, the traditional high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) systems suffer from the lack of universal detector with high sensitivity and universality and high efficiency HPLC separation column which provides complete separation of complex mixtures into all individual substances. In this work, the use possibility of online two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2D-LC) system coupled with a charged aerosol detector (CAD), a universal detector, was reviewed. 2D-LC system permits to improve peak capacity and resolving power for complex mixtures. Charged aerosol detector (CAD) offers a new feasibility for detection of any non-volatile compounds with high sensitivity and constant response factor in a calibration range. The combination of size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and normal phase HPLC (NP-HPLC) is most frequently used for the separation of the natural and synthetic polymers which are mainly used as raw materials for the manufacture of food packaging materials. However, there is no commercial software available for data acquisition and handling and therefore the quantification in 2D-LC analysis is still rare.

It is becoming increasingly important to utilize alternative raw materials for plastic industries other than petrochemical- based plastics. Cellulose derivatives were the bases of the original synthetic plastics. Cellulose and its derivatives, especially the widely used cellulose acetate (CA), constitute one of the main classes of raw materials for production on artificial fibers, films, plastics etc. CA is one of the well known polymers produced from naturally available plant substance. Many researches have focused on the isolation of cellulose from the plant cells to use them as cellulose derivatives and composite materials. Chemical and mechanical treatments provide changes on the molecular structures influencing the fundamental properties of these naturally abundant polymer. The aim of this review article is to review biodegradation, synthesis, formation, and utilization of cellulose esters, especially di-acetate, used in packaging related researches.