Development of a computational desing tool to study the oxygen uptake performance of polymer-based composites films containing oxygen scavengers

One of the main types of active packaging are oxygen scavengers (OS), which are chemical substances whose purpose is to reduce the amount of residual oxygen in a package. In the following document, the main objective will be to develop a computational tool that allows the design of oxygen scavenger polymeric films. Currently, the materials and manufacturing group CIPP-CIPEM at Universidad de los Andes has developed high density polyethylene films that absorb oxygen by incorporating linseed oil nanoencapsulated in silica. To carry out the design tool, the need arose to develop a mathematical model that considers the reactive details of the oxidation kinetics of flaxseed, as well as the distribution and evolution of the active sites within the polymer film. With this in mind, the reactive film, heterogeneous film, and multilayer film model approaches were developed. In order to implement the chemical nature of the oxidation of linseed oil, an adjustment was performed on the kinetic rate constants, as well as on the initial concentration of hydroperoxide and substrate in the oil. The results obtained showed that the kinetic constants found were accurate in predicting the oxygen uptake profiles in the non-isothermal oxidative TGA, as well as in the oxygen headspace analysis of pure linseed oil. When studying the performance of OS films, both heterogeneous and homogeneous models accurately predicted the experimental oxygen adsorption profiles in the headspace. A lower oxygen uptake capacity was observed for the OS films. As a main conclusion it was possible to make a computational design tool capable of predicting the dynamics of the reaction and concentration profiles for single-layer and multilayer oxygen absorbing films.

• Autores: Rozo Oviedo, Daniel Fernando
• Fecha de publicación: 2021
• Institución: Universidad de los Andes
• Repositorio: Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/53814
• Acceso en línea: http://hdl.handle.net/1992/53814
• Palabra clave: Polímeros; Empaques para alimentos; Ingeniería
• Rights: openAccess
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/