Five layers to stop oxygen.
Barrier bottles for juice and beer use a PET/MXD6/PET sandwich. Two thin tie-layers glue the nylon core in place. The barrier works, but the bottle is no longer one material.
Monolayer PEF · from wood & straw residue
Barrier without the layers
G.A.L.M.C. bottles are one material, all the way through. The furan ring in PEF blocks oxygen 6–10× better than PET. You get multilayer shelf life on your existing stretch-blow lines, and a bottle that goes back into the recycling stream instead of the incinerator.
FIG. 01 — O₂ permeation, 1 L bottle, 23 °C
live
O₂ ingress
4.5 µg/day
Layers
1
Recycles as
rPEF / PET stream
01 / The trade-off
Today you choose between
Today you choose between
shelf life and recyclability.
9 %
of Swiss plastic waste is recycled. Most multilayer bottles and trays are burned.
€0.80
per kg of non-recycled plastic packaging. That is the EU plastics levy, before EPR fees.
≥30 %
recycled content required in PET bottles by 2030 under the EU PPWR.
-
Fail 01
Density sorting can't see it
PET/PA and PET/EVOH laminates (1.31–1.36 g/cm³) sink right alongside pure PET flakes.
-
Fail 02
The caustic wash can't split it
85 °C and 1–2 % NaOH remove labels and glue. They do not remove co-extruded cores or covalent tie-layers.
-
Fail 03
The melt rejects it
At 270–290 °C, barrier residues above 0.1–0.5 % cause yellowing, haze, black specks and IV loss. The batch gets downgraded.
02 / The material
Zero ways to separate them.
At the recycler, the layers come out as mixed flakes. They can't be sorted by density, washed apart or melted together without yellowing the batch. So the bottle is burned, and you pay the levy.
One layer that does the job.
PEF swaps the benzene ring in PET for a furan ring: five atoms, one of them oxygen. The furan ring moves less, so gas molecules pass through more slowly. One PEF wall reaches the barrier of the sandwich, with about 50 % higher stiffness.
- O₂ barrier vs PET
- 6–10×
- CO₂ barrier vs PET
- 4–6×
- Glass transition
- 87 °C
- Melting point
- 210–235 °C
03 / Where it comes from
Made from what's left
Made from what's left
after the harvest.
Most bio-based PEF today starts from corn or wheat sugar. We start from cellulose, the non-edible part of the plant found in wood waste and straw. The feedstock is cheaper, it doesn't compete with food, and no fossil carbon goes into the bottle.
-
01
Residue
Wood waste and straw. Nothing grown for food.
-
02
Glucose
Cellulose is split into its sugar building blocks.
-
03
HMF
Sugar is dehydrated into hydroxymethylfurfural, the furan ring.
-
04
FDCA
Oxidation gives furandicarboxylic acid, the PEF monomer.
-
05
PEF resin
Polycondensed with glycol into bottle-grade pellets.
-
06
Your bottle
Injection-moulded preforms, stretch-blown on your line.
04 / Shelf life
Run the shelf-life
Run the shelf-life
calculation yourself.
Oxygen-sensitive drinks degrade once their total oxygen intake passes a fixed budget. This model uses the permeation rates we measured against for our bottle specifications. Move the barrier factor across the published range to see how much margin each format has.
Product
6× conservative10× best case
G.A.L.M.C. shelf life
296days
Target is 180 days. You have a 1.6× margin, enough to take weight out of the wall.
- Mono PET 37 d
- Multilayer PET/MXD6 370 d
- G.A.L.M.C. PEF 296 d
Specification sheet
vs. today's materials · 23 °C, 50 % RH| Property | Mono PET | Multilayer PET/MXD6 | G.A.L.M.C. PEF |
|---|---|---|---|
| O₂ barrier factor | 1× | ≈ 10× | 6–10× |
| CO₂ barrier factor | 1× | ≈ 10× | 4–6× |
| Layers / materials | 1 / 1 | 3–5 / 3 | 1 / 1 |
| Glass transition | 78 °C | 78 °C | 87 °C |
| Hot-fill at 85 °C | heat-set only | heat-set only | heat-set, more headroom |
| Stiffness (modulus) | baseline | baseline | ≈ +50 % |
| Processing | standard ISBM | co-injection preform | standard ISBM, cooler preform |
| Recycling stream | PET | rejected → incineration | NIR-sorted, mechanically recyclable |
| Food contact target | EU 10/2011 & SR 817.023.21 · overall migration ≤ 10 mg/dm² | ||
05 / The business case
The resin costs more.
The resin costs more.
The bottle can cost less.
PEF resin is priced above PET. The comparison that matters is against what you pay today: the barrier layer, plus the levy and EPR fees on a bottle nobody can recycle. Plug in your own volumes.
Format
€1.60 at scale€3.10 today, high
Saving per bottle
5.5 ¢
Per year
€1.1 M
Break-even PEF price
€5.71
Indicative only. Resin per bottle in packaging costs; multilayer = PET at €1.00/kg + €0.02 barrier premium; G.A.L.M.C. bottle 17 g (1 L) / 24 g (0.5 L). Levy €0.80/kg applies to non-recycled packaging. Ask us for a quote on your exact format.
06 / End of life
Into the bin your
Into the bin your
customers already use.
Consumers can't tell barrier bottles apart, and they won't peel anything apart. So the bottle has to sort itself. PEF has its own near-infrared signature. Standard optical sorters pull it into a clean stream and mechanical recycling turns it back into bottle resin.
01PET collectionSame bin as every clear bottle
02NIR sortingPEF spectrum ≠ PET spectrum
03aPET streamStays clear: no MXD6, no haze
03brPEF streamWashed, flaked, back into bottles
“When unsure, many people deliberately throw packaging into general waste to avoid contaminating the PET stream.”
From our survey of 59 Swiss consumers, Oct 2026. 56 % put their last meat/cheese tray in general waste.
07 / Applications
Starting where the margin
Starting where the margin
is biggest.
Juice & smoothies, 1 L
4.5 µg O₂/day against a 7.4 µg budget. The margin of 1.65× lets the wall get thinner, toward a 17 g bottle.
Oxygen-sensitive · hot-fillBeer, 0.5 L
Meets the 180-day oxygen spec at an 8× barrier factor. We're measuring blown-bottle performance before we commit.
O₂ + CO₂ retentionWine, sauces & dairy drinks
Same oxygen problem, same single-material answer. Tell us your format.
Oxygen-sensitiveThermoformed trays
A PEF heat-seal layer on PET could replace the PE laminate that sends trays to incineration.
MAP meat · cheese
08 / Work with us
Put one
Put one
on your line.
We're looking for brand owners and converters to run first preform and bottle trials. Tell us your product and your current bottle, and we'll send samples and a spec comparison.
- Preform samples for your ISBM line
- Barrier data on your format
- Landed-cost comparison vs. your current bottle
09 / Questions
Asked by
Asked by
packaging engineers.
Will it run on our existing PET lines?
Yes, with small adjustments. PEF is injection-moulded and stretch-blow-moulded on standard PET equipment. Its lower melting point (210–235 °C) means cooler preform heating. You don't need co-injection hardware.
Is it food-contact safe?
The bottle is designed to Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 and Swiss SR 817.023.21. That means overall migration ≤ 10 mg/dm² and no NIAS from tie-layers or adhesives, because there are none.
Does it really get recycled?
The European PET Bottle Platform tolerates PEF in the PET stream at low market shares. At larger volumes, near-infrared sorters separate PEF into its own stream for mechanical recycling, since its spectrum differs from PET. Either way it isn't incinerated.
Can we hot-fill?
PEF's glass transition is 87 °C, versus 78 °C for PET, so it has more headroom at an 85 °C fill. Heat-setting is still recommended. We'll confirm shrinkage (< 2 %) on your format.
How is this different from other PEF suppliers?
The polymer is the same family. The feedstock is not. Our route starts from cellulose in wood and straw residues, not from food-crop sugars. That lowers feedstock cost and keeps PEF out of the food-versus-packaging debate.
What does it cost?
The resin is priced above PET today. For a 1 L juice bottle, the lighter wall and the avoided barrier layer, levy and EPR fees can make the finished bottle cheaper than multilayer. Try the calculator, then ask us for a quote.