Common Material of Food Packaging Box
1. Glass
Glass is one of the most commonly used packaging materials. The main characteristics of glass packaging materials are beautiful, hygienic, anti-corrosion, low cost, inert materials and low environmental pollution. Glass containers are widely used for packaging milk, soft carbonated beverages, wines and jams. Glass packaging containers have the following advantages: good chemical stability; good barrier, hygiene and preservation; generally not deformed; easy to seal with a cap, but can be re-sealed after opening; easy to beautify; rich raw materials, low cost and so on. Glass containers are widely used for milk, soft carbonated beverages, wines and jams. Glass packaging is also used for some cooking utensils and tableware. The disadvantage of glass packaging materials is that they are fragile and bulky. From the perspective of the development of glass packaging materials abroad, glass bottles for food packaging are developing in the direction of improving glass strength and lightening (thin-walled). Lightweight and thin-walled glass containers will inevitably affect the strength of glass containers. In addition to adopting reasonable structural design, the solution to this problem is mainly to use chemical and physical strengthening technology, as well as surface coating strengthening method to improve the physical and mechanical strength of glass. At the same time, the glass properties should be improved, especially the recycling and fragile modification of glass packaging products, so as to reduce the energy consumption and material consumption of single glass packaging container.
2. Plastic packaging materials
It has the characteristics of light weight, convenient use, barrier, permeability, heat resistance, cold resistance, corrosion resistance, and beautiful appearance. Because of its rich source of raw materials, low cost and excellent performance, it has been widely used in food packaging, and gradually replaced the traditional packaging materials such as glass, metal, paper and so on, which has changed the appearance of food packaging greatly. It is noteworthy that plastic packaging materials have a prominent disadvantage, which is not easy to degrade, and incineration will produce toxic gases. And plastic packaging materials belong to the shortest use cycle of plastic products, generally for one month to three months, the longest one year. Since then, most of them have become municipal solid waste into the garbage treatment system, and some are discarded at will, resulting in "white pollution". Plastic packaging materials account for the largest proportion of waste, and their pollution to the environment is also the most serious among all kinds of packaging materials. The current treatment scheme is to combine recycling with the development and application of degradable plastics. In addition, due to the defects of plastic products, their moisture resistance and barrier are not as good as metal and glass containers, so it is very important to improve the performance of existing plastics, develop new varieties, improve strength and barrier, reduce consumption, reuse, classification and recycling.
3. Paper Packaging Material
In the modern packaging industry system, paper and paper packaging containers occupy a very important position, accounting for 40% to 50% of the total packaging materials. Compared with other materials, it has a series of unique advantages: good processing performance, good printing performance, certain mechanical properties, easy to compound processing, good workability, good health and safety, and a wide range of raw materials, varieties, low cost, easy to form mass production, paper packaging container weight is higher. Light weight, good buffer, wide application, waste can be recycled, no white pollution. With the enhancement of people's awareness of environmental protection and the actual needs of life, the development of vegetable fiber fast food boxes and natural green packaging materials will be the trend of paper products and food packaging materials in the future. In addition, with the rapid development of packaging technology, edible packaging paper is an important development direction of modern food packaging. This kind of packaging has important environmental protection and economic value. At present, there are two kinds of edible paper abroad. One is to use vegetables as the main raw material to form and dry the vegetables. The other is to paste starch and sugar and add other food additives to form the edible paper in a similar way. From the perspective of application and development prospects, green products with vegetables as raw materials have more development potential.
4. Metal Packaging Materials
Its excellent performances are: high barrier, excellent mechanical properties, good processing technology of container, good resistance to high and low temperature, thermal conductivity and heat shock, good surface decoration, easy recycling of packaging waste. Canned food and some liquid, paste, powder or high-grade food are often packaged with this kind of material. The commonly used metal packaging materials are tinplate and aluminium, which are widely used in the manufacture of food and beverage packaging cans.
