Characterisation of different types of lacquers used in food packaging: Lacquer adhesion tests

The application of organic coatings is widely used in the production of metallic food containers to protect metal against corrosion and to avoid metal-food contact. The protective action of a lacquer film is determined by its physical-chemical characteristics, the method of application and its compatibility with the packed products.The goal of this study was to investigate the protective action of three groups of coatings (water based lacquers, UV cured lacquers and conventional epoxyphenolic lacquers) applied on four lots of different metallic substrate. In characterization, the methods used are dry adhesion, wet adhesion and wet adhesion after sterilization treatments of samples in food imitating solutions. The results show that the best characterization of lacquers is given by the last method, which allows better differentiation between lacquers/substrate systems