Fabrication of Polyethylene/Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Multilayer Composite Film With Excellent Oxygen Barrier Properties, Water Resistant and High Strength

ABSTRACT Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) biaxially stretched film has the advantages of being environmentally friendly, having high mechanical strength, and possessing excellent oxygen barrier properties, so it can be widely used in theory. However, the poor water resistance limits its practical application in barrier packaging for food and pharmaceuticals. To fully utilize the high barrier properties of PVA, herein, our independently developed PVA biaxially stretched (BOPVA) film was adopted as a barrier layer for polyethylene (PE) film, and maleic anhydride‐grafted polyethylene (PE‐g‐MAH) was used as an interfacial adhesive. In this way, a PE/BOPVA/PE multilayer composite film was fabricated, and the effects of MAH content, lamination time, temperature, and pressure on interfacial morphology and peel strength of the multilayer composite film were systematically investigated. The interfacial peel strength between BOPVA film and PE film was effectively enhanced to 28.5 N/15 mm, and the tensile strength and modulus of the obtained multilayer composite film respectively reached 52.4 MPa and 1.38 GPa. The multilayer composite film also presented high puncture strength (85.3 N/mm) and low oxygen permeability coefficient (5.6 × 10 −17 cm 3 ·cm/[cm 2 ·s·Pa]). All of the above properties surpassed those of commercially available EVOH/PA/PE multilayer film, demonstrating the significant potential of PE/BOPVA/PE multilayer composite film for packaging applications.