2021 Bruges Surface Characterization PE Coated Paperboard Thesis

In manufacturing processes, the quality of a product often depends on its surface, and careful control of surface properties is critical to meet customer requirements. A thin layer of polyethylene (PE) is applied to paperboard to increase barrier functionality and high optical quality of the product. For PE-coated paperboard, product quality inspection is performed at the end of the manufacturing process by taking a portion of the reel to the laboratory for quality inspection. These associated offline characterization methods are destructive and time-consuming and are representative of only a small portion of the product. The overall goal of this thesis is to provide new methods to characterize the surface properties of PE-coated paperboard. Specifically, to determine imaging techniques for measuring surface parameters that affect its barrier functionality and surface roughness. In this thesis, two methods for surface characterization of PE-coated paperboard are presented to quantify the two most important product-related quality parameters, i.e. barrier functionality and optical quality, which are affected by the presence of defects in the coating and by the surface roughness of the product, respectively.