The Potential Use of Polymer-Clay Nanocomposites in Food Packaging

Author(s):  
Sudip Ray ◽  
Siew Young Quek ◽  
Allan Easteal ◽  
Xiao Dong Chen

With today's advancement in nanotechnology, Polymer-Clay Nanocomposite has emerged as a novel food packaging material due to its several benefits such as enhanced mechanical, thermal and barrier properties. This article discusses the potential use of these polymer composites as novel food packaging materials with emphasis on preparation, characterization, properties, recent developments and future prospects.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 339-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Mei ◽  
Qin Wang

Recent advances in food packaging materials largely rely on nanotechnology structuring. Owing to several unique properties of nanostructures that are lacking in their bulk forms, the incorporation of nanostructures into packaging materials has greatly improved the performance and enriched the functionalities of these materials. This review focuses on the functions and applications of widely studied nanostructures for developing novel food packaging materials. Nanostructures that offer antimicrobial activity, enhance mechanical and barrier properties, and monitor food product freshness are discussed and compared. Furthermore, the safety and potential toxicity of nanostructures in food products are evaluated by summarizing the migration activity of nanostructures to different food systems and discussing the metabolism of nanostructures at the cellular level and in animal models.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nanou Peelman ◽  
Peter Ragaert ◽  
Elien Verguldt ◽  
Frank Devlieghere ◽  
Bruno De Meulenaer

AbstractThe research aim was to evaluate the applicability of biobased plastics for packing long shelf-life food products, both on laboratory and industrial scale. Therefore, the shelf-life (room temperature) of tortilla chips, dry biscuits and potato flakes packed under air or modified atmosphere (MAP) in xylan and cellulose-based packages was evaluated and compared with their shelf-life in reference (conventional) packaging materials. These tests were followed by packaging trials on industrial lines. Furthermore, overall migration studies and printability tests were performed. Most of the biobased packages showed sufficient barrier towards moisture and gasses to serve as a food packaging material and MAP packaging of long shelf-life food products is possible. But for very moisture-sensitive food products (e.g. dry biscuits), no suited packaging material was found. The quality of the tortilla chips and potato flakes could be guaranteed during their shelf-life, even if packaging materials with lower barrier properties were used. Still, brittleness and seal properties are critical for use on industrial scale (important for use on vertical flow packaging machines). Furthermore, the films were printable and migration tests showed compliance with legislation. This study shows promising results towards the industrial application of biobased packaging materials for long shelflife food products.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 2588
Author(s):  
Mansuri M. Tosif ◽  
Agnieszka Najda ◽  
Aarti Bains ◽  
Grażyna Zawiślak ◽  
Grzegorz Maj ◽  
...  

In recent years, scientists have focused on research to replace petroleum-based components plastics, in an eco-friendly and cost-effective manner, with plant-derived biopolymers offering suitable mechanical properties. Moreover, due to high environmental pollution, global warming, and the foreseen shortage of oil supplies, the quest for the formulation of biobased, non-toxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable polymer films is still emerging. Several biopolymers from varied natural resources such as starch, cellulose, gums, agar, milk, cereal, and legume proteins have been used as eco-friendly packaging materials for the substitute of non-biodegradable petroleum-based plastic-based packaging materials. Among all biopolymers, starch is an edible carbohydrate complex, composed of a linear polymer, amylose, and amylopectin. They have usually been considered as a favorite choice of material for food packaging applications due to their excellent forming ability, low cost, and environmental compatibility. Although the film prepared from bio-polymer materials improves the shelf life of commodities by protecting them against interior and exterior factors, suitable barrier properties are impossible to attain with single polymeric packaging material. Therefore, the properties of edible films can be modified based on the hydrophobic–hydrophilic qualities of biomolecules. Certain chemical modifications of starch have been performed; however, the chemical residues may impart toxicity in the food commodity. Therefore, in such cases, several plant-derived polymeric combinations could be used as an effective binary blend of the polymer to improve the mechanical and barrier properties of packaging film. Recently, scientists have shown their great interest in underutilized plant-derived mucilage to synthesize biodegradable packaging material with desirable properties. Mucilage has a great potential to produce a stable polymeric network that confines starch granules that delay the release of amylose, improving the mechanical property of films. Therefore, the proposed review article is emphasized on the utilization of a blend of source and plant-derived mucilage for the synthesis of biodegradable packaging film. Herein, the synthesis process, characterization, mechanical properties, functional properties, and application of starch and mucilage-based film are discussed in detail.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 216-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jen-Yi Huang ◽  
Janelle Limqueco ◽  
Yu Yuan Chieng ◽  
Xu Li ◽  
Weibiao Zhou

BioResources ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 9569-9574
Author(s):  
Marta Kaźmierczak ◽  
Tomasz P. Olejnik ◽  
Magdalena Kmiotek

In some respects the safest food packaging material is paper that is completely free of chemical additives, made only from primary cellulosic fibers. There is no information in the literature on giving paper barrier properties using nanocellulose without any additives, especially bacterial cellulose, by applying a coating to a fibrous semi-product. In order to prepare paper-layered composites, paper sheets made of beaten or non-beaten softwood or hardwood cellulose pulp, or their 50/50 (wt./wt.) mix, were used in the experiment. After the application of bacterial cellulose onto the sheets, the paper became completely impermeable to air, which means that fine microbial fibers had filled the voids (pores) between plant cellulose fibers. The results of the experiment could be regarded as a perfect, biodegradable packaging material.


2011 ◽  
Vol 117-119 ◽  
pp. 1137-1141
Author(s):  
Ling Yu Wang ◽  
Jun Yan Huang ◽  
Li Hua Cui

In order to study the characteristics of a new kind of high-barrier and high-temperature sterilization and easy tear flexible plastic packaging materials applied in food packaging, the PET/AL/CPP was chosen as flexible plastic packaging material structure, different PET, CPP, alcohol inks, adhesives and other raw materials were selected for making a series of processing technology experiment and detection analysis. Then comparing the data obtained with the requirements, it was concluded that new flexible plastic packaging materials were extremely high resistance oxygen and resistance wet, high-temperature sterilization and good one-way easy tear, and etc.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nitin Kumar ◽  
Preetinder Kaur ◽  
Surekha Bhatia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to acquaint the readers with recent developments in biopolymer-based food packaging materials like natural biopolymers (such as starches and proteins), synthetic biopolymers (such as poly lactic acid), biopolymer blending and nanocomposites grounded on natural and synthetic biopolymers. This paper is an attempt to draw the readers towards the advantages and attributes of new era polymers to diminish the usage of traditional non-biodegradable polymers. Design/methodology/approach Plastic packaging for food and associated applications is non-biodegradable and uses up valuable and treasured non-renewable petroleum products. With the current focus on researching alternatives to petroleum, research is progressively being channelized towards the development of biodegradable food packaging, thereby reducing adverse impact on the environment. Findings Natural biopolymer-based nanocomposite packaging materials seem to have a scintillating future for a broad range of applications in the food industry, including advanced active food packaging with biofunctional attributes. The present review summarizes the scientific information of various packaging materials along with their attributes, applications and the methods for production. Originality/value This is an apropos review as there has been a recent renewed concern in research studies, both in the industry and academe, for development of new generation biopolymer-based food packaging materials, with possible applications in many areas.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Schmid ◽  
Kerstin Dallmann ◽  
Elodie Bugnicourt ◽  
Dario Cordoni ◽  
Florian Wild ◽  
...  

In case of food packaging applications, high oxygen and water vapour barriers are the prerequisite conditions for preserving the quality of the products throughout their whole lifecycle. Currently available polymers and/or biopolymer films are mostly used in combination with barrier materials derived from oil based plastics or aluminium to enhance their low barrier properties. In order to replace these non-renewable materials, current research efforts are focused on the development of sustainable coatings, while maintaining the functional properties of the resulting packaging materials. This article provides an introduction to food packaging requirements, highlights prior art on the use of whey-based coatings for their barriers properties, and describes the key properties of an innovative packaging multilayer material that includes a whey-based layer. The developed whey protein formulations had excellent barrier properties almost comparable to the ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymers (EVOH) barrier layer conventionally used in food packaging composites, with an oxygen barrier (OTR) of <2 [cm³(STP)/(m²d bar)] when normalized to a thickness of 100 μm. Further requirements of the barrier layer are good adhesion to the substrate and sufficient flexibility to withstand mechanical load while preventing delamination and/or brittle fracture. Whey-protein-based coatings have successfully met these functional and mechanical requirements.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document