A potato chip is a thin slice of potato that has been deep fried, baked, kettle-cooked, or popped until crunchy. Potato chips are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetizer. As there is a large amount of oil contained in the potato chip, it is liable to be oxidized. Therefore, it is required to minimize the oxygen content inside the package, otherwise, the potato chips may taste not crispy or even create rancidity.

The potato chip is usually packed in bags or barrels. Those bags are mainly made of aluminum-plastic composite film or aluminized composite film. While the barrels used for potato chip are usually made of aluminum-plastic-paper composite material. Both of those bags and barrels can provide sufficient oxygen barrier property, which can protect the potato chips in those packages from oxidization.

This article provides a simplified test method for the oxygen barrier property of aluminum-plastic-paper package for potato chips. The testing instrument used to measure the oxygen permeability of the specimens 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.

Figure 1. Aluminum-plastic-paper Barrels for Potato Chips

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

(1)    Paste the aluminum-plastic-paper barrel 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.

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.