Plastic Packaging Materials for Food: Barrier Function, Mass Transport, Quality Assurance, and Legislation

Plastics have developed into the most important class of packaging materials. Their relative impermeability for substances from the surroundings has great influence on the shelf life and the quality of the packed goods. At the same time the interaction between the contents and the various components of the packaging plays a decisive role. This particular book is indispensable in the search for the optimal plastic packaging. It facilitates the estimation of the influence on the goods which come from the surroundings and from the packaging. The authors do not restrict themselves only to the description of the phenomena of diffusion or transport in theory, but they show what they mean for practical applications. Food represents the central theme as main area of application for plastic packaging. It can be considered to be the "model substance" and the findings are to be applied to many other products and systems. The main rules and regulations for food packaging of the European Community and the United States are presented in this book. Furthermore the authors emphasize the testing methods for proving the mass transport and the sensory check of the quality of the products. Content: Chapter 1 Preservation of quality through packaging (pages 1–8): Albert L. Baner and Otto PiringerChapter 2 Characteristics of plastic materials (pages 9–45): Johannes Brandsch and Otto PiringerChapter 3 Additives for plastics and their transformation products (pages 47–77): Jan Pospisil and Stanislav NespurekChapter 4 Partition coefficients (pages 79–123): Albert L. BanerChapter 5 Models for diffusion in polymers (pages 125–157): Peter MerceaChapter 6 Prediction of diffusion coefficients in gases, liquids, amorphous solids and plastic materials using an uniform model (pages 159–181): Otto PiringerChapter 7 Transport equations and their solutions (pages 183–219): Otto PiringerChapter 8 Numerical solutions of the diffusion equation (pages 221–238): Titus A. BeuChapter 9 Permeation of gases, water vapor and volatile organic compounds (pages 239–285): Otto PiringerChapter 10 Migration of plastic constituents (pages 287–357): Roland FranzChapter 11 Migration from food packaging: Regulatory considerations for estimating exposure (pages 359–392): Timothy H. BegleyChapter 12 European Community legislation on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (pages 393–406): Luigi RossiChapter 13 Sensory problems caused by food and packaging interactions (pages 407–426): Otto Piringer and Monika RuterChapter 14 Case study: styrene monomer migration into dairy products in single serve portion packs (pages 427–443): Albert L. BanerChapter 15 Possibilities and limitations of migration modeling (pages 445–468): Johannes Brandsch, Peter Mercea and Otto Piringer