Abstract
The performance characteristics of polylactic acid (PLA) as an active food packaging film can be highly influenced by the incorporation of active agents (AAs) into PLA, and the type of processing technique. In this review, the effect of processing techniques and the addition of natural AAs on the properties related to PLA performance as a packaging material are summarized and described through a systematic analysis, giving new insights about the relation between processing techniques, types of AA, physical–mechanical properties, barriers, optical properties, compostability, controlled release, and functionalities in order to contribute to the progress made in designing antioxidant and antimicrobial PLA packaging films. The addition of AAs into PLA films affected their optical properties and influenced polymer chain reordering, modifying their thermal properties, functionality, and compostability in terms of the chemical nature of AAs. The mechanical and barrier performance of PLA was affected by the AA’s dispersion degree and crystallinity changes resulting from specific processing techniques. In addition, hydrophobicity and AA concentration also modified the barrier properties of PLA. The release kinetics of AAs from PLA were tuned, modifying diffusion coefficient of the AAs in terms of the different physical properties of the films that resulted from specific processing techniques. Several developments based on the incorporation of antimicrobial and antioxidant substances into PLA have displayed outstanding activities for food protection against microbial growth and oxidation.
Highlights
Environmental pollution generated from the accumulation of plastic waste is undoubtedly one of the most urgent environmental problems that needs to be addressed.This fact originates mainly due to the increase in disposable plastic products principally used in the food packaging sector, whose degradation time can extend several hundred years
The color and opacity of polylactic acid (PLA) films have been the main optical properties affected by the incorporation of active agents (AAs)
When an AA was added to PLA, the thermal properties of the resulting active PLA films depended on the molecular structure of the AA, its nucleating and/or plasticizing effect on the polymer structure, its concentration, and the dispersion degree reached from each processing technique
Summary
Environmental pollution generated from the accumulation of plastic waste is undoubtedly one of the most urgent environmental problems that needs to be addressed. Previous works have already compiled the description of antioxidant and antimicrobial PLA film developments due to the relevance of PLA in the design of bioderived active packaging [23,24,25] In this framework, this review was focused on summarizing the effect of processing techniques and the addition of AAs on the main physical and compostability properties of PLA in a critical and comprehensive manner. This review was focused on summarizing the effect of processing techniques and the addition of AAs on the main physical and compostability properties of PLA in a critical and comprehensive manner Their functionalities for food packaging applications and their mass-transfer properties for AA release were analyzed. Effect of Processing and Incorporation of Active Agents in Physical–Mechanical
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