Most of us outside the field pay little attention to packaging, although without it our food and other commodities would be unsafe, untransportable, and often unusable. Here, the authors stress the relationship between chemical structure and packaging material properties. They begin with basic concepts and definitions, polymer structures and properties, major plastics in packaging, additives and compounding. They proceed to processes such as adhesion and heat sealing, extrusion, converting, lamination, casting, flexible packaging, thermoforming, injection molding, blow molding and bottles. They cover foams, cushioning and distribution packaging, and mass transfer-related systems and considerations. In the final chapters they address US regulations on plastic packaging and environmental considerations. They provide references and study questions for each chapter. In this second edition the authors update material on PET bottle production, retort pouches, polyactides, and plastics recycling. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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