Nanoclay and Polystyrene Type Efficiency on the Development of Polystyrene/Montmorillonite/Oregano Oil Antioxidant Active Packaging Nanocomposite Films

Aris E Giannakas,Nikolaos E Zafeiropoulos,Dimitrios Moschovas,Andreas Karydis-Messinis,Eleni Kollia,Charalampos Proestos,Constantinos E Salmas,Apostolos Avgeropoulos,Vasiliki Tsigkou

doi:10.3390/app11209364

Aris E Giannakas, Nikolaos E Zafeiropoulos + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209364

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Abstract

Over the years, there has been an effort to extend food shelf life so as to reduce global food waste. The use of natural biodegradable materials in production procedures is more and more adopted nowadays in order to achieve cyclic economy targets and improve environmental and human health indexes. Active packaging is the latest trend for food preservation. In this work, polystyrene was mixed with natural NaMt, OrgNaMt montmorillonite, and oregano essential oil to develop a new packaging film. Strength, oxygen and water-vapour permeation, blending and homogeneity, and antimicrobial and antioxidant activity were measured as basic parameters for food packaging films characterization. Instruments such as a tensile measurement instrument, XRD, FTIR, DMA, OPA (Oxygen Permeation Analyzer), and other handmade devices were used. Results showed that polystyrene could be modified, improved, and exhibits food odour prevention characteristics in order to be used for applications on food active packaging. The material with the code name PS5OO@OrgMt qualified between the tested samples as the most promising material for food active packaging applications.

Highlights

In recent decades much effort has been devoted to the use of polymer nanocomposites in food packaging industrial products [1]
The XRD patterns of Na-montmorillonite clay (NaMt) and organically modified montmorillonite clay (OrgMt) as received nanoclays, as well as of Oregano oil (OO)@NaMt and OO@OrgMt modified nanostructures are included in this figure for comparison reasons
In our case both the PSNaMt and the PScoMANaMt based films (Figure 2a,b, respectively) exhibit only the band at 470cm−1 which corresponds to Si-O stretching

Summary

Introduction

In recent decades much effort has been devoted to the use of polymer nanocomposites in food packaging industrial products [1]. Polystyrene (PS) is one of the most widely used thermoplastic polymers in various industrial applications, including food packaging. Due to its high stiffness, strength, durability, good thermal properties, low moisture absorption, transparency, light density, convenience of processing and moulding, and low cost, this polymer is widely used as a food packaging material [3,4,5,6]. Among various nanoparticles [7] which are used as reinforcements for polymer nanocomposites, montmorillonite (Mt) has been extensively used in industrial applications because it is a naturally abundant clay mineral and biodegradable material, and it has unique structure and properties. The first is the modification of the Mt surface with organic surfactants [10,11] and the second is the hydrophilic modification of the PS surface with compatibilizers such as co-maleic anhydride [12,13]

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