The recent deoxidizer trend

The recent deoxidizer trend

Preface

In strengthening the safety and concern of food, a lot of methods of keeping quality have been used. Among them, the use of oxygen inhalation to maintain the quality of the method, not only in the country, the "active packaging" of the trend of the influence of the world is also attracting attention. Deoxidant, also known as oxygen absorber, is used to prevent oxidation in food package (prevent mold production, prevent oxidation of oil, keep flavor and tone, and ensure food's original taste). There are many applications of oxygen inhalants. In recent years, oxygen bottles used for cooking and oxygen inhaling agents that give dry skills (medicinal retention agents) have also been manufactured. Here, the latest trends will be introduced with an example of the oxygen inhalant produced by the company.

1. The history of deoxidizer

The principle of deoxidizing the quality of food in the way of truncating oxygen was reported in 1920 but not practicable. In the 1969, the "powder" as the main agent of oxygen inhalant, on the market has not been popularized. The leading and practical deoxidizer in the world is that the company has been commercialization in 1977. It has gone through more than 30 years, and the method of preservation continues to attract attention. Deoxidizer is starting from sales, focusing on the fields of cake, noodle, aquaculture and candy, and expanding its application. But recently, vegetables and livestock meat, Steamed Rice aseptic processing products, has also been used in the supermarket sales of food processing and packaging. The popularization of deoxidizer must be adapted to the needs of the food industry. For example, the development can adapt to the microwave oven heating food for oxygen inhalants, sealed oxygen inhalants, a variety of functional and morphological oxygen inhalants. Besides, the implementation of the labeling and PL method, the introduction of HACCP system, the safety and comfort of food, and so on, gradually expand the application scope of deoxidizer.

Recently, oxygen - absorbing packaging films with deoxidizing functions have also been developed. To expand the oxygen - absorbing packaging for liquid, viscous, distilled bottles and so on. It also increased the application of medicine and medical machines, especially for the difficult to hydrolyze the solid products, and developed the deoxidizer which gives the drying function to expand its application.

2. Application of deoxidizer

Oxygen in the air is necessary for human survival. Many organisms can't survive, but on the contrary, there are many harmful effects. Especially the greatest factor of food deterioration is caused by the action of oxygen. For example, the oil in the food is oxidized by the influence of light and temperature in the air, and the taste, color and aroma are reduced, and nutrients are destroyed. However, packaging with oxygen inhaler can maintain the oxygen in the packaging for a long time to reach the anaerobic state of low oxygen concentration (0.1vol%), which can inhibit the damage of oxygen.

Deoxidizer has been used in foods such as raw cake and steamed bread. It is now used in various kinds of products, such as dry food, fresh food, refrigerated food, frozen food, microwave heating food, medicine and so on.

The quality of preservation food methods so far is the most food additives, preservatives and antioxidants, or freezing, refrigeration, salt, sugar and other collections; canned, bottled, distilled bottle, smoked, or has recently been focused on aseptic packaging, to inhibit microorganism as the main purpose, although its effect but, the effect is not fully eliminate oxygen. And sometimes the freshness of the food is sacrificed in order to give priority to preservation.

In view of the preservation method of deoxidizing packaged food, vacuum packaging or inert gas packing is developed, and its important role is played. However, the biggest drawback of the 2 methods is that commodities cannot be fixed, and there are more internal surplus gas. It is impossible to remove oxygen or remove 100% by mechanical physical method. Moreover, even in the case of plastic film packaging, even if we choose plastic film with barrier properties, we can't do anything about the amount of oxygen that is penetrated from the outside of the package. For oxygen inhalant packaging, the oxygen can be absorbed in the package, and the oxygen concentration can be kept below 0.1% for a long time.

3. Recent situation

3 - 1  Iron based oxygen absorption thin film

Deoxidizer is a commercial packaging material with various forms and types, and the former deoxidizer is also difficult to apply. For example, a lot of liquids, such as food, will inundate oxygen inhalant, it is difficult to use the effect of oxygen absorption. Also, a small oxygen agent installation space is difficult, such as jelly, jelly and other food containers forming sweet. Furthermore, for the food with heat treatment such as distilled bottles, it is basically not suitable for the former deoxidizer.

However, the above food is affected by oxygen, causing a lot of quality degradation. In order to maintain the quality of these foods, packaging containers with high barrier properties can be used, but the influence of oxygen in the headspace and dissolved oxygen in the liquid is also important. For this reason, the oxygen absorption film with oxygen absorption function of the packaging film itself is developed.

3 - 1 - 1  The structure and basic principle of oxygen absorption thin film

The basic structure is shown in Figure 1. The outer layer is protected by polyester or nylon. In order to cut off the oxygen permeated from the container, the oxygen absorbing layer is designed between the barrier layer and the thermal seal layer by using aluminum foil and EVOH, inorganic evaporating polyester, etc. The oxygen absorption layer uses an iron based oxygen absorbent. It is necessary to react with oxygen. The oxygen absorption layer begins to absorb oxygen in the presence of water and oxygen. It absorbs residual oxygen and dissolved oxygen in the container and penetrated oxygen at the outside of the barrier. By absorbing the oxygen in the container, the oxidation and degradation of the heated food can be prevented. The thickness of the composite layer is 100 mu m~130 mu m.

3 - 1 - 2  Demonstration of the effect of oxygen absorption

The structure of composite membrane can change the speed of oxygen absorption according to the product specifications, application conditions and other factors. The following will verify the effectiveness of the two experiments.

• Oxygen absorption speed in distillation

A packaging container made of an oxygen absorption film used for distillation is used to determine the rate of oxygen absorption, as shown in Figure 2. The air in the headspace contains about 21% oxygen, which dissolves about 8ppm of dissolved oxygen in the water at the normal temperature. However, under the condition of Figure 2, when the concentration of dissolved oxygen in distilled water (121 degrees, 30 minutes) is below 0.1ppm, it is confirmed that the oxygen concentration in the headspace is reduced. The oxygen concentration in the headspace also continued to decrease after that, and reached less than 0.1% a few days later.

• Residual rate of vitamin C after distillation

Vitamins are easily affected by oxygen and are easily decomposed by heat accelerated oxidation. Figure 3 is a vitamin C containing no headspace in various barrier materials and oxygen - absorbing film bags, and then determine the residual rate of vitamin C after distillation. In the film with inorganic evaporating barrier layer and aluminum foil barrier layer, the filling material also makes vitamin C residue rate low, and is affected by the dissolved oxygen contained in the original solution. It accelerates vitamin C oxidation in heating treatment. There is also a low residual rate of EVOH and other resistance diaphragms, which is due to the influence of dissolved oxygen in packing when filling, and the barrier performance in distillation is low, and it may be caused by the influence of external invasion of oxygen. Compared with the oxygen absorbing film, the high residue rate of vitamin C is probably because it is oxidized earlier than the vitamin C during distillation. The oxygen absorbing film can absorb the oxygen in the irreversible solution.

The above experimental results show that vitamin C in the packaging of oxygen absorbing film is not affected by oxygen due to heat and prevents degradation of nutrients and pigments. It can maintain almost the same color and flavor of food.

3 - 1 - 3 Application examples and application results

The oxygen - absorbing film, which is easy to cause oxygen degradation, is considered to have its application effect. The results of each project will be described in a comprehensive way.

①  Distilled food (curry soup): a thick soup made with dairy products, with the color of its food and the taste of fresh cream. And curry has also left a strong flavor of curry and ingredients (especially vegetables). Aquatic products: the flavor and color of fish can be preserved. Tuna is considered in the distillation of colour has significant differences.

②  Green-yellow vegetables: green-yellow vegetables coexist with oxygen to prevent it from faded by heating and the decomposition of nutrients.

③  Soy sauce, seasoning, soup juice: (cooked seafood, when seasoning in the soup), to prevent fading, is considered to have the flavor of a kelp bonito soup to prevent oxidation effect.

④  

Fruit: the discoloration of the flesh of the flesh of the fruit and fruit jelly that is considered to have the fruit.

Have a package

⑤  Chestnut products: chestnut sauce and chestnut soup, which is considered to have the effect of preventing discoloration and preserving flavor.

⑥

Red bean food: red bean paste, red bean soup, jelly, is thought to have in the heating and preservation of the flavor and color maintenance effect.

Jelly

⑦ Matcha food: the use of Matcha and Green Tea pudding or Green Tea  pudding or jelly， can prevent containing tea components (theine) oxidation discoloration effect.

In the future, according to the expansion of products, not only the oxygen absorbing films of iron components, but also the production of oxygen absorbing films of organic components will also become the focus. Expanding the scope of application will be our goal.

3 - 2  Deoxidizer for medical and medical equipment

Deoxidizer is not only used in food, but also in quality keeping in the anaerobic state of medical and medical equipment.The general medicine is a substance that is mainly processed by chemical substances, and it is difficult to avoid its deterioration with time. Secondly, medical products are directly related to human life, and are required to have strong safety performance, high quality performance and stability.Therefore, the long time stability and maintenance quality are very important from the manufacturing to the treatment site for a period of timeThe quality deterioration of pharmaceuticals is influenced by many factors. However, it is easy to produce chemical, physical and biological changes due to the influence of temperature, humidity, light, oxygen and microorganism.To fully grasp these reasons, it is necessary to plan its stabilization from the initial stage of the study of the manufacturing agent. But that is limited and interferes with the rapid development of new drugs and products.

One of the ways to solve these problems is to review the packaging method, packaging shape and circulation conditions. According to this method, the stability of medicine can be left and right .In order to maintain the quality of medical products, the application of infusion packages, eye drops, pre filled syringes and so on is increased.

3 - 2 - 1  Deoxidizing agent packaging for medical and medical equipment

     For example (infusion package)

The past infusion was filled in glass bottles. However, when glass bottles are discharged during infusion, they must enter air into the bottle. If they error in operation, they will cause microbial contamination or infection and risk. Secondly, in order to ensure safety and convenience during transportation and on-site treatment, it gradually changes from glass bottle to plastic bottle.

One of the problems in transporting liquid to plastic bottles is how to exclude the influence of oxygen invaded by plastic packaging. Because the glass is not oxygen permeation, but the use of plastic barrier materials, only a very low oxygen intrusion in. In particular, the infusion package of amino acids, transparent,infusion through invasion resin film invades a small amount of oxygen, will change from yellow to tea color change.

In order to prevent the harm, Deoxidizer packaging can be used in the same shape as shown in figure 5. In this case, the original deoxidizer can be  reduce the oxygen concentration in the gas between Outer packing (barrier packing) and Internal packing (non barrier packing) ，along with Liquid equilibrium of dissolved oxygen in internal packing, the oxygen concentration in the headspace in the inner packing is gradually lowwhich ultimately guarantees the dissolved oxygen in the liquid below 0.1ppm.

Recently, the infusion package is also divided into two liquid infusion packages. At the beginning of the drip, the packaging of the inner bag (double bag easy tear package combination), powdery solid medicine (anti biomass, etc.) and liquid powder mixed with dissolving liquid is adopted to expand the packaging shape.

Besides, those from eye drops, pre filled syringes, artificial dialysis machines (dialysis), blood bags and plastic ampoules of glass ampoules are suitable for use. The deoxidizer can be used in many aspects, including Chinese medicine tablets, catheters and electrocardiogram electrodes.

3 - 2 - 2  Development of new deoxidizing agents for pharmaceutical and medical applications (Pharmaceutical maintenance)

As mentioned above, there are a lot of practical performance effects on the packaging of deoxidizer in medical and medical equipment. However, in order to maintain the oxygen absorption properties of deoxidizer, a small amount of moisture (humidity) is necessary. To this end, there may be the following problems in adapting to the previous dry deoxidizer series of pharmaceutical products and medical equipment.

（1） The combination of desiccant and deoxidizer

Deoxidizer itself has water to absorb oxygen, and as the time goes on,after water shortage it will stop the absorption of oxygen. In this case, the oxygen that is intruded through the packing material will increase the oxygen concentration, which may cause the oxidative degradation of the drugs.

（2）Water migration of desiccant

When the desiccant and deoxidizer are used together, the moisture retained by the deoxidizer itself is transferred to desiccation directly, so that the pharmaceutical preparation may be affected by moisture.

In order to solve this problem, the automatic oxidation of organic compounds can be used to develop new deoxidizer with the following characteristics.

① The moisture (humidity) in the oxygen absorption reaction is not necessary.

② The absorption of oxygen can also be maintained in the dry condition.

③  There is no transfer of water from deoxidizer to applied substance (no effect on the humidity of the applied substance).

④ According to the two functions of "oxygen absorption + desiccation", the varieties can be found at the same time.