Measurement of the Oxygen Transmission Rate of Co‐extruded Wine Bottle Closures Using a Luminescence‐Based Technique

The oxygen transmission rate (OTR) is a value commonly measured in different industries to evaluate oxygen flow through all types of packaging. The Mocon® Ox‐tran® method (Mocon Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA) for measuring OTR is globally accepted and is recommended in different standards such as the ASTM (F1307‐02), but in practice, only a limited number of samples can be analysed, and the stabilisation of the measurement takes time. In this paper, a simple, non‐destructive technique allowing measurement of co‐extruded closure OTR is presented. The established protocol allows measurement of oxygen ingress through the closures or at the interface between closures and bottleneck and avoids possible leakages that can happen when bottlenecks are glued onto metallic plates. Oxygen permeating in the bottle is measured by a luminescence‐based technology using separate sensors supplied by PreSens® (Precision Sensing GmbH, Regensburg, Germany). The simple set‐up and the use of a non‐destructive luminescence‐based technology make this an easy test to perform. Moreover, the development of a predictive model allows us to reduce the analysis time to one week. Comparison with the well‐established Mocon Ox‐tran method shows good accordance between the two techniques. This new method allows the measurement of more samples in less time without compromising analytical performance. This method could become a useful quality control procedure in the wine industry to assess OTR performances of closures.