Composite Oxygen-Barrier Coating on a Polypropylene Food Container

Seong Jin Kim, Enukyung Song, Kyoungsik Jo, Taekyung Yun, Myoung-Woon Moon, Kwang-Ryeol Lee
 

The composite oxygen-barrier coating of plasma polymerized-hexamethyldisiloxane (pp-HMDSO) and silicon oxide (SiOx) on polypropylene (PP)was performed to lower the oxygen transmission rate. A pp-HMDSOinterlayer was employed to cover PP pores at a relatively high porosity and provide better a thermal and mechanical buffer between brittle SiOx and soft and porous PP. There is an optimumthickness for the pp-HMDSO and SiOx films due to competition between the accumulated strain energy by compression in the composite layers and the interfacial adhesion strength. By choosing the optimal thickness of the layers, the oxygen transmission rate was improved from 7.42 × 10^-4 for a pristine PP container to 2.6 × 10^-5 cm³/m²-day-Pa with 8 ± 2 nm pp-HMDSO and 24 ± 6 nm SiOx layers.