Improvement of starch adhesive properties used in the carton industry

Native starch has relatively suitable characteristics including biodegradable properties, being widely used as an adhesive in the corrugated carton manufacturing companies. Corn starch is currently used in the companies for producing adhesives. In this study, fines of NSSC pulp as natural additive and ammonium persulfate as chemical oxidative additive were used to improve the adhesion properties of corn starch. Fine was added at three levels of 5%, 10%, and 15% (based on oven-dry weight of starch) and ammonium persulfate similarly was mixed at 5 levels of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 grams. Addition of fine was lead to increasing adhesion strength (PAT) of the corrugating board to the amount of 25%, 35% and 43% respectively. This improvement could be due to increasing the number and strength of hydrogen bonding of fiber layers (corrugating and liner paper) and value of solid content. Addition of ammonium persulfate revealed that the method applied similar to mixing fine had no desirable results and the other methods should be used.