Nanomaterials in preparation of bionanocomposites for food packaging applications

Abstract

Environmental pollution and the diminishing of fossil resources are the most important problems of today’s modern life. Therefore the demand for sustainable and biodegradable packaging materials has increased with an increase in the consumption of packaged food products. The development of bionanocomposite films with desired properties including biodegradability, lightweight, high performance, and so on, have been gained great attention over the last decades. The fabrication of bionanocomposite meeting ecological requirements mainly focuses on the usage of nanomaterials in biopolymer matrix to improve stability, barrier performance, and mechanical strength of biopolymers. Despite these, the extension of the shelf life of food products could be enhanced by the incorporation of nanomaterials in bionanocomposites for food packaging. In this chapter, the details of the main types of nanomaterials used in the most widely investigated biopolymers in food packaging applications and the properties of their bionanocomposites are overviewed. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.