Chapter 1 - Starch-based nanomaterials, their properties and sources

Abstract

Food packaging has a pivotal role in transporting, storing, handling and preserving food throughout the distribution chain which is very important for food safety. Food can be easily contaminated by direct contact with physical, chemical and biological contaminants, because of characteristic defects in conventional food packaging materials. Plastic is being used as food packaging material for decades. Plastic can absorb the colour, flavours and smells of the product being contained when food is stored in it. Plastic packing for food is also damaging environmental qualities due to its non-biodegradable and highly polluting nature. The food industry is in great need of an alternative novel, eco-friendly, cost-effective and completely biodegradation, with high biocompatibility and good film-forming properties, resourceful food packaging materials for protection and monitoring of packaged food quality which is feasible only through food safety, in order to resolve degradation problem of plastics. Currently, the food packaging sector is in the expedition of lightweight biodegradable packaging. An effective strategy for reducing the problem of plastic pollution is the development of biodegradable materials which can replace plastic. Research studies are ongoing to explore readily biodegradable materials such as bio-nanocomposites. Among all the biopolymers, starch-based films are considered to the most promising owing to be the abundance and low cost of starch. Starch-based films are biodegradable in nature and are edible hence have the capacity to be used as a primary packaging material in the food industry. In recent years, applications of nanotechnology in the food industry have become more evident with respect to the enhancement of physical properties, increased protection against biological and chemical deterioration, and increased bioavailability. Starch-based food packaging could become an alternative to non-biodegradable materials used for the packaging of food and will be more eco-friendly in nature.