Sustainably sourced biopolymers for use in complex paper packaging

塑料包装和与之相关的废物是现代生活中众所周知且痛苦的一部分。然而，我们都讨厌的是回收、回收和报废，而不是增加产品的便利性、卫生和保质期。某些产品没有包装就无法销售，因为氧气和湿度会变质和腐烂食物，或者让咖啡豆失去所有的香味，但同样--保护敏感的电子产品或电池内部。这些正是不能回收的包装材料，最终会被送进垃圾填埋场或焚烧炉。你们今天可能处理过的包装材料是那些用铝薄膜衬里的包装材料。这种金属层阻挡了所有的气体传输，但同样，也使得回收和分离金属和塑料几乎是不可能的--所以实际上塑料并不是唯一的罪魁祸首……我们的项目旨在将金属从包装膜中踢出来，转向大自然寻求解决方案。壳聚糖是一种丰富的天然聚合物，存在于真菌和昆虫/甲壳动物的贝壳中，经过数十亿年的进化，它比钢更坚固，完全不透空气和水。通过制作壳聚糖薄膜(以及我们的智能塑料库中的一些神奇化学物质)，我们可以创建具有金属涂层功能的层，但仍保持完全可生物降解和可回收利用。壳聚糖一旦被粉碎并重新混合到回收塑料中，不仅不会像金属那样降低其性能，反而会增强回收材料的强度。通过使用壳聚糖，我们可以将包装材料的目标定为可在家中堆肥，并完全可持续。我们建议进行有重点的产品开发，通过试验一种新的柔性薄膜将我们的技术推向市场，这种薄膜可以密封风味，延长保质期，所有这些都不需要在我们的塑料中混合金属。我们希望生物塑料的等待已经结束，英国可以成为这场革命的捍卫者。

Plastic packaging and the waste associated with it is a well-known and painful part of modern life. However, it is the recycling, recovery, and end-of-life that we all hate, not the added convenience, hygiene, and shelf-life of products. Certain products just could not be sold without packaging, as oxygen and humidity would spoil and rot the food or let coffee beans lose all their aroma, but equally -- protect sensitive electronics or battery innards. These are precisely the packaging materials that can't be recycled and wind up in landfill or incinerators. The packaging materials, which you have likely handled today, are those with a lining of thin film of aluminium. This metal layer blocks all gas transmission, but equally, makes recycling and separating the metal from the plastic nearly impossible -- so actually plastic is not the only villain here... Our project aims to kick metals out of packaging films and turn to nature for a solution. Chitosan is an abundant natural polymer found in fungi and insect/crustaceans shells and itself evolved over billions of years to be stronger than steel and completely impervious to air and water. By making thin films of chitosan (and a little magical chemistry from our Smart Plastics library), we can create layers that serve the function of metal coatings but remain totally biodegradable and recyclable. Chitosan once crushed and mixed back into a recycled plastic will not degrade its properties, as metal would, but in fact strengthen the recycled materials. By using chitosan, we can aim for our packaging materials to be home compostable and totally sustainable. We propose a focused product development to move our technology into the market by piloting a new flexible film that can seal in flavour, extend shelf lives, and all of this without the need for mixing metals into our plastic. We hope the wait for bioplastics is over and the UK can be the champion of this revolution.