Development and Application of Antibacterial Packaging Film with Zinc Oxide

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) was used as an antibacterial additive to replace silver zeolite in low-density polyethylene (LDPE) to fabricate the antibacterial packaging film. The mechanical properties of films, the antibacterial function of films, and the storage test of ham slices wrapped with the antibacterial film and LDPE film were examined. The ZnO content had the significant effect on reducing the transparency, thickness and tensile strength of antibacterial films wheras the D-ZS content did not. The antibacterial agent ZnO significantly inhibited the growth of both Gram-positive bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, and Gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli, and had higher efficacy on the Gram-positive bacteria. The best antibacterial film was manufactured by the recipe 8 (0.8% ZnO/0.2% D-ZS in LDPE film), their logarithmic reduction values (LRV) of S. aureus and E. coli were 4.3 and 3.7, respectively. After the first 2 days of storage at 4℃ and 25℃, they were significant (p＜0.05) in the residual total counts of bacteria between the ham slices wrapped with the antibacterial film with recipe 8 and those wrapped with LDPE film.