Flexible materials such as BOPP and PET are widely used as printing substrates with inks that are cured by Electron Beam irradiation. These printed films are laminated with PE to guarantee the properties expected in the food packaging market. The lamination force, to quantify the adhesion requirements between films, is a property that must be understood and predicted to increase the performance of the package in service.

The effect of the surface properties on the printed system is studied. Before printing, these substrates are treated with Corona discharge, chemicals, or plasma. The system is finally cured by means of EB irradiation, to later be laminated. It is attributed that all these stages influence the lamination force of the final system and therefore its quality. This research seeks to define the relationship between substrate characteristics, their changes during the process, and the lamination forces.

The characterization of the surfaces has been carried out by means of analyzes such as GC-MS headspace, pyrolysis-MS, IR spectroscopy, confocal microscopy, and DSC. The contact angle has been measured in order to define the surface energy as a function of the interaction between films, inks and adhesives. All those techniques allows to define the chemical character of the adhesion. A tensile strength tester was used to measure lamination forces for different system configurations.