Iranian Knowledge-Based Firm Develops New Environmentally-Friendly Packaging Plastic
The managing director of an Iranian knowledge-based company, Foad Mashayekhi, said that he and research teammates have designed and introduced oxygen-reducing masterbatches (OBMB) to achieve food packaging methods with safety features and longer storage time.
“This product is specially designed to reduce gas passage and absorb oxygen trapped in the package, which reduces the volume of oxygen passing through the packages. This masterbatch added to the main polymer during the production process, and it can be produced based on different polymers according to the customer's demand,” he said.
“Reducing gas infiltration, being anti-UV and antibacterial, increasing inhibitory properties, preventing color change in the product and oxidation, improving mechanical properties and resistance against heat, increasing the shelf life of the product, and maintaining the quality of food containing lipids are among the properties of these polymers,” according to the researcher.
Mashayekhi said that his company's product is plastic raw materials and his customers are a variety of industries such as household items, auto industries, water and gas transmission pipelines that require large steel pipes with plastic coating.
He went on to say that "oxygen transmission regulator" and "biodegradable masterbatches” are some of the knowledge-based products of his company, which If they are used in packaging materials, they reduce the transmission of oxygen and also absorb the oxygen that is inside the package.
“This is very important for industries such as the food industry because oxygen is the main factor in destroying and spoiling food such as milk, cheese and meat products," said the managing dirctor, adding that when such materials are exposed to oxygen, they will spoil.
“With nanoparticles, we gave plastic products the ability to biodegrade when they are thrown away into the environment,” Mashayekhi went on to say, adding, “In these studies, we used nanoparticles to produce polymers that can increase the shelf life of food by reducing the infiltration of oxygen.”
“This causes food to spoil at longer time, and this is very important for foodstuff factories because these masterbatches allow the factories to produce foodstuffs that last longer and have more opportunity to spread and distribute the food among stores.”
According to him, any industries that use plastic materials in their packaging can benefit from these masterbatches.
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