Lignocellulose Nanofibre Obtained from Agricultural Wastes of Tomato, Pepper and Eggplants Improves the Performance of Films of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) for Food Packaging.

Isabel Bascón-Villegas,Alejandro Rodríguez,Fernando Pérez-Rodríguez,Eduardo Espinosa,Mónica Sánchez-Gutiérrez

doi:10.3390/foods10123043

Isabel Bascón-Villegas, Alejandro Rodríguez + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10123043

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Journal: Foods (Basel, Switzerland)	Publication Date: Dec 8, 2021
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Córdoba

Abstract

Films formulated with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) (synthetic biopolymer) were reinforced with lignocellulose nanofibres (LCNF) from residues of vegetable production (natural biopolymer). The LCNF were obtained by mechanical and chemical pre-treatment by 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl radical (TEMPO) and added to the polyvinyl alcohol (polymer matrix) with the aim of improving the properties of the film for use in food packaging. The mechanical properties, crystallinity, thermal resistance, chemical structure, antioxidant activity, water barrier properties and optical properties (transparency and UV barrier), were evaluated. In general, with the addition of LCNF, an improvement in the studied properties of the films was observed. In terms of mechanical properties, the films reinforced with 7% LCNF TEMPO showed the best results for tensile strength, Young’s modulus and elongation at break. At the same LCNF proportion, the thermal stability (Tmax) increased between 5.5% and 10.8%, and the antioxidant activity increased between 90.9% and 191.8%, depending on the raw material and the pre-treatment used to obtain the different LCNF. Finally, a large increase in UV blocking was also observed with the addition of 7% LCNF. In particular, the films with 7% of eggplant LCNF showed higher performance for Young’s modulus, elongation at break, thermal stability and UV barrier. Overall, results demonstrated that the use of LCNF generated from agricultural residues represents a suitable bioeconomy approach able to enhance film properties for its application in the development of more sustainable and eco-friendly food packaging systems.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilFood packaging plays a major role in protecting, maintaining and improving the quality and safety of food during transport, distribution and storage [1]
The aim of this study was the development of films for food application, assessing the effect of pre-treatment and concentration of lignocellulose nanofibres (LCNF) from woody residues from tomato, pepper and eggplant plants in a polymeric matrix (PVA)
Mechanical ter performance observed could be due to different mechanisms: (i) the compact structure properties could be significantly improved for some of the tested conditions

Summary

Introduction

Introduction published maps and institutional affilFood packaging plays a major role in protecting, maintaining and improving the quality and safety of food during transport, distribution and storage [1]. The materials used to produce food packaging have been plastic polymers of petrochemical origin, (polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyamide (PA), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), etc.), paper, metal and glass. In 2018, plastics production reached 51.2 million tonnes, accounting for 39.9% of food packaging production [4]. Despite the technological advantages of using plastic packaging, environmental and human health can be negatively affected due to its non-biodegradable nature and the possibility of migration of chemicals from plastic packaging into food [2].

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