This report documents an investigation of the feasibility of incorporating expandable polymeric microspheres into polyolefin films for food packaging applications and the ability of the microsphere‐loaded film to reduce the weight of the packaging materials and to improve their thermal insulation, mechanical, and barrier properties. This research was conducted by the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC), from October 2007 to September 2010, as a Combat Feeding Research and Engineering Program (CFREP) technology base project, TB 08‐05, Packaging Materials Incorporating Polymeric Microspheres. The effort was lead by personnel from the DoD Combat Feeding Directorate Advanced Materials Engineering Team to include Sarah Schirmer Cheney as the principal investigator (PI), Christopher Thellen who provided Processing Expertise, and Jo Ann Ratto who provided Technical Expertise.
This paper highlights application of the MTPS method of C-Therm's Trident Thermal Conductivity Analyzer