Author(s)

Vânia M. Dias¹, Alena Kuznetsova², João Tedim², Aleksey A. Yaremchenko², Mikhail L. Zheludkevich², Inês Portugal¹, Dmitry V. Evtuguin^1*

¹CICECO/Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
²CICECO/Department of Materials and Ceramic Engineering, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.

Paperboard is an environment-friendly multi-layer material widely used for packaging applications. However, for food packaging paperboard lacks essential barrier properties towards oxygen and water vapor. Conventional solutions to enhance these barrier properties (e.g. paperboard film coating with synthetic polymers) require special manufacturing facilities and difficult the end-of-life disposal and recycling of the paperboard. Paperboard coating with silica-based formulations is an eco-friendly alternative hereby disclosed. Silica-nanocoatings were prepared by sol-gel synthesis, with or without the addition of Zn(2)-Al-NO₃ layered double hydroxides (LDHs), and applied on the surface (ca 2 g/m²) of industrial paperboard samples by a roll-to-roll technique. The physicochemical features of silica-nanocoatings were studied by FTIR-ATR, SEM/EDS, XRD analysis and surface energy measurements. The barrier properties of uncoated and silica-coated paperboard were accessed by water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) and oxygen permeability (J_o2) measurements. The best barrier results were obtained for paperboard coated with a mixture of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), with and without the incorporation of LDHs.

Paperboard, Silica-Based Formulations, Layered Double Hydroxides, Sol-Gel Synthesis, Barrier Properties

Dias, V. , Kuznetsova, A. , Tedim, J. , Yaremchenko, A. , Zheludkevich, M. , Portugal, I. and Evtuguin, D. (2015) Silica-Based Nanocoating Doped by Layered Double Hydroxides to Enhance the Paperboard Barrier Properties. World Journal of Nano Science and Engineering, 5, 126-139. doi: 10.4236/wjnse.2015.54015.