Browsing by Author "Abeysinghe, M. M. D. A."

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    Factors affecting on the integrity and sealing of flexible packaging
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Abeysinghe, M. M. D. A.; Wijesinghe, W. A. J.P.; Senarathne, A.
    In biscuit manufacturing, quality assurance plays a significant role in order to deliver a product that will attract the customers and profit gaining of the industry is closely related with the quality of packaging operations (Manly, 2002). There are various types of packaging materials that is being used for biscuit packaging but at present, flexible packaging materials are used prominently because of its good barrier properties, space saving, ease of operation and disposability etc. End product package integrity is important when assuring quality of the product throughout the shelf life (Robertson, 2012). At packaging, sealing defects may result damaged end products which will eventually absorb moisture and the biscuits may become stale and deteriorated along with shelf life. To prevent that, suitable machine settings of the packaging machine should be maintained and monitored.Objectives of this study are to find the best suitable machine setting range for two types of wrappers, metalized wrapper and laminated wrapper and to find the effect of Accelerated life testing on the package integrity, moisture absorbance and rancidity. Methodology In this study, the integrity of end products belonged to two different types of flexible packaging materials (metalized and laminated wrapper), which was produced to different sets of temperature settings were monitored. From the selected wrappers, material combination of metalized wrapper (trade name Metalized BOPP/ CPP film) is 20 BOPP/ 25 MCPP and laminated wrapper (trade name BOPP/ CPP) consist 30 BOPP/ 25 CPP. Selected metalized wrapper is being using for Soft dough type 1(round) 75g product and laminated wrapper is being using for Soft dough type 2(rectangular) 100g product. The integrity of biscuit package is measured by subjecting the samples in to Leak tester. The sample packet was submerged in the water chamber of the leak tester and gradually the vacuum of the head space of the water chamber was created and was increased which resulted the expansion of the packet. The value of the vacuum pressure at which the package integrity gets terminated (either by bubble emission from the weakest point of seal or bursting of the package) was taken as the response measurement. Preliminary data base was created for five weeks by testing sixty biscuit packets of metalized and laminated wrapper each from morning and evening shift for its integrity by subjecting those to leak tester. The treatment was taken as the machine setting values (sealing temperature values) at which the biscuit packages were produced(RL1= roller 1, RL2= roller 2, UJ= upper jaw, LJ= lower jaw). The response variable was the vacuum pressure value at which the package integrity was terminated when subjected to leak tester.Those best treatments from each metalized wrapper and laminated wrappers were then subjected to accelerated life testing (ALT) by incubating under 45°C for eight weeks. Weekly the biscuit packet samples from each wrapper were tested for its integrity, moisture content, pH and rancidity.