2021 Annual Meeting

(563g) Barrier Coatings Derived from Cellulose and Chitin

Authors

Meisha L. Shofner, Georgia Institute of Technology
Yue Ji, Georgia Institute of Technology
Zeyang Yu, Georgia Institute of Technology
There is a strong drive to discover and develop alternatives to conventional plastics that offer the ability to be manufactured and used in a circular manner. In a circular economy, as opposed to a linear one, materials are derived from renewable resources or recycled content, and at the end of life, they are able to be circulated back into production via a chemical, physical or biological pathway. A critical need exists to develop such materials for plastic packaging, which represents the largest contributor to unrecyclable or difficult-to-recycle plastic waste. This talk describes innovations in production of barrier films and coatings suitable for food or pharmaceutical packaging, based on combinations of cellulose- and chitin-based nanomaterials. Cellulose nanocrystals, CNCs, and chitin nanofibers or nanocrystals (ChNFs, ChNCs), are oppositely-charged, water-dispersible fibers that could form the basis of a platform of renewable, high-performance materials. In particular this talk will highlight work in creating multilayer coatings with excellent oxygen barrier properties on a variety of substrates. Challenges to industrial implementation and approaches to overcome these will also be analyzed.