Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Dec 28;16(1):279.
doi: 10.3390/ma16010279.

Active Food Packaging Made of Biopolymer-Based Composites

Xuanjun Hu  1 , Chao Lu  1 , Howyn Tang  2 , Hossein Pouri  1 , Etienne Joulin  1 , Jin Zhang  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Active Food Packaging Made of Biopolymer-Based Composites

Xuanjun Hu et al. Materials (Basel). .

Abstract

Food packaging plays a vital role in protecting food products from environmental damage and preventing contamination from microorganisms. Conventional food packaging made of plastics produced from unrenewable fossil resources is hard to degrade and poses a negative impact on environmental sustainability. Natural biopolymers are attracting interest for reducing environmental problems to achieve a sustainable society, because of their abundance, biocompatibility, biodegradability, chemical stability, and non-toxicity. Active packaging systems composed of these biopolymers and biopolymer-based composites go beyond simply acting as a barrier to maintain food quality. This review provides a comprehensive overview of natural biopolymer materials used as matrices for food packaging. The antioxidant, water barrier, and oxygen barrier properties of these composites are compared and discussed. Furthermore, biopolymer-based composites integrated with antimicrobial agents-such as inorganic nanostructures and natural products-are reviewed, and the related mechanisms are discussed in terms of antimicrobial function. In summary, composites used for active food packaging systems can inhibit microbial growth and maintain food quality.

Keywords: active packaging; antibacterial mechanism; antimicrobial packaging; biopolymers; composites; metal oxide nanoparticles; polyphenols.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 4
Figure 4
The rupture of bacterial cell walls by physicomechanical mechanisms: (A) Three-dimensional (3D) illustration of the interactions between a rod-shaped cell and the surface on which the nanorods grow vertically—(a) the contact between the cell and the surface; (b) the absorption of the cell onto the nanostructured surface; (c) the rupture of the cell membrane ((a–c) are reprinted with permission from [117]). (B) Schematic illustration of a bacterial cell adhering to (d) a flat surface and (e) a nanopatterned surface (reprinted with permission from [118]). (C) Comparison of the surface of clanger cicada wings and ZnO nanorods—(f) scanning electron micrograph (SEM) image of the surface of a cicada wing with (scale bar = 200 nm) (reprinted with permission from [117]); (g) SEM of the ZnO nanorods produced on polydimethylsiloxane by a hydrothermal method (reprinted with permission from [113]).
Figure 1
Figure 1
Components of biopolymer-based nanocomposites and their properties for food packaging.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Main active antioxidant packaging systems (a) A releasing system in which active compounds are coated onto the surface of the packaging film (b) A releasing system in which active compounds are incorporated into the packaging film using polymers (c) A releasing system in which active compounds are incorporated into a different layer of the packaging films for more precise and controlled release (d) An oxygen scavenging system in which active compounds are covalently bound onto the surface of the packaging films(reprinted with permission from [63]).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Molecular mechanisms of antibacterial activity of metal/metal oxide nanoparticles (ROS: reactive oxygen species).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Kalyoussef S., Feja K.N. Foodborne illnesses. Adv. Pediatr. 2014;61:287–312. doi: 10.1016/j.yapd.2014.04.003. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sathyanarayana S.R., Warke V.G., Mahajan G.B., Annapure U.S. Comparative studies of microbial and heavy metal safety assessment of the herbs cultivated in hydroponically and regular soil system. J. Food Saf. 2021;41:e12936. doi: 10.1111/jfs.12936. - DOI
    1. Pogreba-Brown K., Austhof E., Armstrong A., Schaefer K., Villa Zapata L., McClelland D.J., Batz M.B., Kuecken M., Riddle M., Porter C.K. Chronic gastrointestinal and joint-related sequelae associated with common foodborne illnesses: A scoping review. Foodborne Pathog. Dis. 2020;17:67–86. doi: 10.1089/fpd.2019.2692. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO Foodborne Disease. [(accessed on 2 April 2022)]. Available online: https://www.who.int/health-topics/foodborne-diseases#tab=tab_1.
    1. WHO Listeriosis. [(accessed on 2 April 2022)]. Available online: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/listeriosis.

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
twitter 2