Bambax has reportedly received independent third-party validation for its fibre additive, said to deliver a 55% reduction in moisture vapour transmission rate (MVTR) without additional polymer for moisture sensitive food packaging formats including dry goods, coffee, confectionery, and snack applications.
The reduction is expected to help mills and converters to manage cost per tonne, protect machine uptime and deliver consistent performance at scale while reducing plastic content and meeting tightening recyclability requirements. For traditional polymer coatings, Bambax says it enables polymer down gauging while maintaining equivalent barrier performance.
Apparently, Bambax can act as a performance enhancer for emerging bio-based and seaweed-derived coatings with strong recyclability and compostability, aiming to close the gap where barrier performance falls short of petrochemical equivalents. As the fibre additive is applied at the press stage of papermaking, it requires no new equipment or changes to downstream converting processes.
“Working from first principles, Bambax modulates the vapour pressure gradient within the fibre network, reducing the driving force for moisture transmission across the entire barrier structure,” said Bambax founder Cameron Bartley. “In one case, we took a coated paper from 8g/m2/day down to 3.51g/m2/day transmission.”
The company says two pilot trial programmes have been completed at Western Michigan University’s Paper Pilot Plant and it is actively seeking to work with mills and converters interested in evaluating how substrate-level enablement can complement existing coating systems, reduce polymer reliance and expand the commercial viability of fibre-based packaging.
Bambax adds that it is currently raising capital to optimize process parameters for commercial mill integration.
In other news, Smart Planet Technologies announced its HyperBarrier PE film in May, said to deliver ‘300 times’ the oxygen barrier performance of standard PE film and be recyclable in the PE stream under the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). The film is also said to provide 3 to 5 times better moisture barrier performance compared to standard PE under humid conditions where EVOH-based structures are known to degrade.
More recently, UK based materials company Kelpi revealed a partnership with Amcor, aiming to integrate its seaweed-derived barrier coatings into the company’s fibre-based packaging. Kelpi says it will support the evaluation of its technology platform within Amcor’s AmFiber fibre-based solutions portfolio, targeting demanding end-use applications that require high barrier performance, efficient material use and circularity.
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