Instant noodles are a precooked and usually dried noodle block, sold with flavoring powder and/or seasoning oil, usually in a separate packet. In the early days, plastic composite package and aluminum plastic package are the main packaging forms for the instant noodle. Today cup noodles have become very popular because of its edible convenience especially for those consumers in traveling.

The noodle cup is usually a foam food container, hard plastic or paper cup. Paper plastic composite material is widely used in instant noodle cup, which will be discussed in this article. The instant noodles are usually fried noodles, which contains certain amount of oil or grease that may be likely to be oxidized. The instant noodles will become deteriorated due to such kind of oxidization. Therefore how to prevent the instant noodles from oxidization becomes a critical subject. The packaging materials that are selected to manufacture the instant noodle cup should be adequate so that the quality of the product can be guaranteed within its shelf life.

This article provides simplified procedures for oxygen barrier property test of instant noodle cup for your reference. The test specimens are one brand instant noodle cups, which are made of paper plastic composite material. The testing instrument is Labthink VAC-V1 Gas Permeability Tester, which adopts differential pressure method.

With differential pressure method, the sample is mounted in a gas transmission cell so as to form a sealed semi-barrier between two chambers. One chamber contains the test gas at a specific high pressure, and the other chamber, at a lower pressure, receives the oxygen. The oxygen will be detected by either a manometric sensor or a volumetric sensor.

Figure 1. Common Instant Noodle Cups

Figure 2. VAC-V1 Gas Permeability Tester

The test specimens can be tested according to the following procedures.

l  Cut 3 pieces of Φ65 mm specimens from the instant noodle cup body with sample cutter.

l  Take one piece of specimen and paste it in the test cell with adhesive tape.

l  Set specimen parameters and test parameters in the software.

l  Turn on the vacuum pump.

l  Click Start Test to start the test. The test results will be displayed automatically after the test.

l  Test another 2 pieces of specimens with the same procedures mentioned above.

By testing the oxygen barrier property, the manufacturer or users of the instant noodle cups can select proper packaging materials to ensure the quality of the instant noodles within shelf life.

For more details about VAC-V1 Gas Permeability Tester, 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.