The various national organisations participating in the EU-funded wheylayer project (www.wheylayer.eu), which conducts research into using whey protein-based coatings to replace synthetic oxygen-barrier layers in food packaging, have issued a positive interim assessment after an initial one and a half years of development.

The idea behind the project is to replace the oxygen barrier made out of synthetic polymers such as EVOH and PVDC copolymers, which are difficult to recycle. In the context of the wheylayer project these synthetic polymers are replaced by whey protein isolate coating solutions, which are not only cheaper but also display excellent oxygen barrier properties for the packaging.

Since its start-up in November 2008, project participants have managed to develop various samples of films, including whey protein-coated films as well as multilayer laminates composed of an intermediate layer of whey protein coated in PET and then laminated with PE.

The project organisers say the wheylayer-based films and laminates have mechanical properties that make them suitable for food packaging applications, adding that they are currently in the process of developing packaging solutions incorporating anti-microbials and anti-oxidants as well. For the remaining one and a half years of the three-year project, the consortium says it will focus on reproducing the initial test phase results at lab and pilot scale to develop a commercially feasible technique for producing whey coated plastic films.

Project participants include the Catalonian business association Patronal de la Petita i Mitjana Empresa de Catalunya (PIMEC, Barcelona / Spain; www.pimec.es), the Association of Hungarian Plastics Industry (MMSZ; www.huplast.hu), the Slovenian Plasttechnics Cluster (GIZ-Grozd Plasttehnika, Celje / Slovenia; www.giz-grozd-plasttehnika.si), the Italian plastic recyclers association Associazione Nazionale Riciclatori e Rigeneratori di Materie Plastiche (ASSORIMAP, Rome; www.assorimap.it), the dairy cooperative Lleters de Catalunya (www.lleters.cat), Slovenian packaging manufacturer Lajovic Tuba (Ljubljana; www.lajovictuba.com), the dairy cooperative Meierei-Genossenschaft e.G. (Langenhorn / Germany), process engineering company Dunreidy Engineering (Kilkenny / Ireland; www.dunreidy.com), Germany’s Fraunhofer Institut (Freising; www.ivv.fraunhofer.de), market research company ttz Bremerhaven (Bremerhaven / Germany; www.ttz-bremerhaven.de), the University of Pisa (Italy; www.ing.unipi.it) and the Catalonian research centre Innovació i Recerca Industrial i Sostenible (Castelldefels / Spain; www.iris.cat).