Product Code Database
Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, , Fat, bacteria, and liquid water makes it useful for food packaging. Cellophane is highly permeable to water vapour, but may be coated with nitrocellulose lacquer to prevent this.
Cellophane is also used in transparent pressure-sensitive tape, tubing, and many other similar applications.
Cellophane is compostable and biodegradable, and can be obtained from biomaterials. (2026). 9780323242738 ISBN 9780323242738 The original production process uses carbon disulfide (CS2), which has been found to be highly toxic to workers. The newer lyocell process can be used to produce cellulose film without involving carbon disulfide.
"Cellophane" is a generic term in some countries, while in other countries it is a registered trademark owned by DuPont.
A similar process is used to make rayon, wherein the viscose solution is extruded through a spinneret, to form cellulose filaments, rather than a slit, which forms cellulose film.
Cellophane - like (filamentous) viscose, rayon and cellulose - is a polymer of glucose, insofar as cellophane is structurally different to Monomer glucose, while its chemical composition is the same.
It took ten years for Brandenberger to perfect his film. His chief improvement of his original cellophane-like film was to add glycerin to soften the material. By 1912, he had constructed a machine to manufacture the film, named "Cellophane"—a blend word of cellulose and diaphane ("transparent"). The product film, Cellophane, was patented that year.Carlisle, Rodney (2004). Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries, p.338. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey. . The following year, Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels (CTA) bought Thaon firm's interest in Cellophane and Brandenberger in a new company, La Cellophane SA.
In the United States, Whitman's began using cellophane for its Whitman's Sampler candy wrapping in 1912. Whitman's remained the largest user of imported cellophane from France until nearly 1924, when DuPont built the first cellophane manufacturing plant in the United States. Cellophane saw limited sales in the U.S. at first because, although it was waterproof, it was not moisture-proof; it held or repelled water but was permeable to water vapor. That meant it was unsuitable for packaging products that required moisture-proofing. DuPont hired chemist William Hale Charch (1898–1958), who spent three years developing a nitrocellulose lacquer that, when applied to Cellophane, made it moisture-proof. Following the introduction of moisture-proof Cellophane in 1927, sales tripled between 1928 and 1930 and, in 1938, Cellophane accounted for 10% of DuPont's sales and 25% of its profits.
Cellophane played a crucial role in developing the self-service retailing of fresh meat. Cellophane's transparency helped customers know the quality of meat before buying. Cellophane also worked to consumers' disadvantage when manufacturers learned to manipulate the appearance of a product by controlling oxygen and moisture levels to prevent discolouration of food. It was considered such a useful invention that cellophane was listed alongside other modern marvels in the 1934 song "You're the Top" (from Anything Goes).
The British textile company Courtaulds, diversified its operations in 1930 to include production of a viscose film named "Viscacelle". However, competition with the commercially successful Cellophane hindered sales of Viscacelle. That resulted in the founding of British Cellophane Limited (BCL) in 1935, in conjunction with the Cellophane Company and its French parent company CTA. BCL established a major production facility at Bridgwater, Somerset, between 1935 and 1937, which employed 3,000 workers. Other cellophane production plants were opened at Cornwall, Ontario (BCL Canada), as an adjunct to the existing Courtaulds viscose rayon plant, and from which it bought the viscose solution, and at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. The latter two plants were closed in the 1990s.
Cellophane sales have dwindled since the 1960s, due to alternative packaging options. The polluting effects of carbon disulfide and other by-products of the process used to make viscose may have also contributed to its falling behind lower cost petrochemical-based films such as biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BoPET) and biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) in the 1980s and 1990s. However, as of 2017, it has made something of a resurgence in recent times due to its being biosourced, compostable, and biodegradable. Its sustainability record is clouded by its energy-intensive manufacturing process and the potential negative impact of some of the chemicals used, but significant progress in recent years has been made by leading manufacturers in reducing their environmental footprint.
While cellophane is biodegradable, carbon disulfide—used in most cellophane production—is highly toxic. Viscose factories vary widely in the amount of CS2 they expose their workers to, and most give no information about their quantitative safety limits or how well they keep to them. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends a short-term exposure limit of 10 ppm.
Branding
In the UK and in many other countries, "Cellophane" is a registered trademark and the property of Futamura Chemical UK Ltd, based in Wigton, Cumbria, England. In the USA and some other countries "cellophane" has become genericized, and is often used informally to refer to a wide variety of plastic film products—even those not made of cellulose—such as PVC-based plastic wrap. Due to this genericization, the more scientifically specific term "cellulose film" is increasingly favored in the industry and in material science to accurately distinguish the original regenerated cellulose product from petrochemical plastics.
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