Health food is food considered beneficial to health in ways that go beyond a normal healthy diet required for human nutrition, which is usually made by extracting nutrients from natural plant, vegetable, fruit and dairy products, etc. Some of those nutrients contained in the health products are liable to be oxidized or absorb moisture, thus the package for health products should have sufficient oxygen and moisture barrier property.

The packaging materials for health products are mainly featured with high barrier property, such as plastic or metal bottles. The health product that contains ingredients liable to be oxidized is usually packed in metal bottles, which can be maintained good quality within the shelf life. This article discusses the test method for oxygen barrier property of the metal bottles used for health products, which may provide a reference for the health product manufacturers.

Figure 1. Metal Bottles for Health Products

The test specimens are aluminum bottles for one brand nutrient liquid. The testing instrument used is Labthink’s OX2/230 Oxygen Transmission Rate Test System. This instrument uses a coulometric detector to determine the oxygen transmission rate. The specimen is mounted as a sealed semi-barrier between two chambers at ambient atmospheric pressure. One chamber is slowly purged by a stream of nitrogen at a given temperature and relative humidity and the other chamber is purged by a stream of oxygen at the same temperature as the nitrogen stream but may have a different relative humidity than the nitrogen stream. In this case the environment would more closely simulate actual shelf conditions. As oxygen gas permeates through the film into the nitrogen carrier gas, it is transported to the coulometric detector where it produces an electrical current, the magnitude of which is proportional to the amount of oxygen flowing into the detector per unit time. Note: For the package specimens, nitrogen flows inside the package while oxygen flow outside the package.

The tests can be performed according to the following testing procedures.

(1) Paste the aluminum bottle on the test plate with Aradite Rapid Transparent Adhesive. Place the specimen with test plate into the package hood. Cover the specimen with a bag.

(2) Set test temperature, test humidity and other test parameters. Click Test to start the test.

(3) Adjust the humidity and carrier gas flow rate.

(4) The test results will be calculated by the system automatically after test.

With the test results obtained in the tests, the health product manufacturer can easily determine whether those metal bottles they use for their products meet the requirements for oxygen barrier property.

For more details about OX2/230 Oxygen Transmission Rate Test System, please visit www.labthink.com

About Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd:

Labthink Instruments Co., Ltd is one leading supplier of packaging testing instruments, which is headquartered in Jinan, China and operated in Boston, U.S.A.