Packaging

Presenting, protecting, and preserving

Arkema offers a wide range of plastics and specialty chemicals for the packaging market, where it is a global leader.

Listening to Our Customers

Before moving forward with our very broad, diversified range of products, Arkema pays close, constant attention to the technical, logistics and financial requirements of our customers. To improve our efficiency and responsiveness to the needs of processors, packagers, and distributors, Arkema Research & Development deploys cutting-edge resources, such as computer-assisted design (CAD), to make prototype and preproduction packages.

In addition, Arkema is active in European Committee for Standardization (ECS) working groups dealing with food packaging regulations, to enhance our expertise in plastics safety and the inert properties of food-grade packaging materials.

Broad Applications

The diversity of polymers and monolayer and multilayer options leads to broad applications in the food industry.

The excellent bonding properties and low glass-transition temperatures of certain Norsocryl® acrylic monomers, such as Norsocryl® 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, make them key raw ingredients in the manufacture of pressure-sensitive adhesives for packaging labels. In addition, our acrylic monomers are used to produce inks.

Arkema's functionalized polymers, Kynar® and Kynar Flex® polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and Orgalloy® and Pebax® resins are used in many high-performance film and packaging applications:

• Chemical barriers
• Moisture and vapor barriers
• Hot melt films and webs
• Automotive trims
• Breathable films
• Coextruded films, sheets and bottles

With their excellent adhesive properties, Orevac® resins are used in the production of multilayer structures that combine the strength, sealing and water barrier properties of a polyolefin with the performance of an oxygen barrier material such as polyamide. Lotryl® resins and Lotader® resins are often used as polyolefin sealing layers.

Films are used for vacuum-pack bags for meat, prepared foods, fish, cheese and coffee, cooking bags for ham, and sachets for mustard, ketchup and other condiments and sauces. Sheets are used to produce small jars for pureed fruit and thermoformed trays to package salads, prepared foods, and fresh pasta.

Multi-layer bottles using Orevac® resins as a tie layer are ideal for packaging fruit juice, vitamin-enriched milk, and other beverages.

Our Luperox® Polymerisation Initiators intervene upstream in the packaging industry.

Sartomer manufactures a complete line of acrylate and methacrylate monomers and oligomers, and Sarbox® Specialty Oligomers for packaging applications.

These low-VOC products are widely used in ultraviolet (UV) light, electron beam (EB) curing of inks and varnishes.“LM” acrylates have been specially designed to allow formulators to develop low migratable inks and varnishes.

Application examples include:

• Various inks and varnishes for packaging for food
• Various inks and varnishes for packaging for health and beauty items.