Anuradhi Liyanapathiranage

Over the past few decades, synthetic petroleum-based packaging materials have increased, and the production of plastics has surpassed all other man-made materials due to their versatility. However, the excessive usage of synthetic packaging materials has led to severe environmental and health-related issues due to their nonbiodegradability and their accumulation in the environment. Therefore, bio-based packages are considered alternatives to substitute synthetic petroleum-based packaging material. Furthermore, the choice of packing material in the food industry is a perplexing process as it depends on various factors, such as the type of food product, its sustainability, and environmental conditions. Interestingly, due to proven mechanical, gas, and water vapor barrier properties and biological activity, polysaccharide-based bioplastics show the potential to expand the trends in food packaging, including edible films or coatings and intelligent and active food packaging. Various chemical modifications, network designs, and processing techniques have transformed polysaccharide materials into valuable final products, particularly for large-scale or high-value applications. Transitioning from petroleum-based resources to abundant bio-based polysaccharides presents an opportunity to create a sustainable circular economy. The economic viability of polysaccharide-based bioplastics is determined by several factors, including raw material costs, production technologies, market demand, and scalability. Despite their potential advantages over traditional plastics, their economic feasibility is affected by continuous technological advancements and evolving market dynamics and regulations. This review discusses the structure, properties, and recent developments in polysaccharide-based bioplastics as green and sustainable food packaging materials.

Over the past few decades, synthetic petroleum-based packaging materials have increased, and the production of plastics has surpassed all other man-made materials due to their versatility. However, the excessive usage of synthetic packaging materials has led to severe environmental and health-related issues due to their nonbiodegradability and their accumulation in the environment. Therefore, biobased packages are considered alternatives to substitute synthetic petroleum-based packaging material. Furthermore, the choice of packing material in the food industry is a perplexing process as it depends on various factors, such as the type of food product, its sustainability, and environmental conditions. Interestingly, due to proven mechanical, gas and water vapor barrier properties and biological activity, polysaccharide-based bioplastics show the potential to expand the trends in food packaging, including edible films or coatings and intelligent and active food packaging. This review discusses the structure, properties and recent developments in polysaccharide-based bioplastics as green and sustainable food packaging materials.

Over the past few decades, synthetic polymer production has increased, and the production of plastics has surpassed all other man-made materials due to their versatility. Moreover, packaging plastic makes up around 40% of global plastic production. However, the excessive usage of synthetic packaging materials has led to severe environmental and health-related issues. Therefore, biobased packages are considered alternatives to substitute synthetic packaging on the market. Furthermore, the choice of packing material in the food industry is a perplexing process as it depends on various factors, such as the type of food product, its sustainability, and environmental conditions. Interestingly, due to proven gas barrier properties and biological activity, polysaccharide-based bioplastics show the potential to expand the trends in food packaging, including edible films and intelligent and active food packaging. This review discusses the structure, properties and recent developments in polysaccharide-based bioplastics as food packaging materials.

As a novel post-harvesting strategy, edible films and coatings for fruits and vegetables offer preservation measures to meet the growing needs of hunger and agricultural management. The functionality of edible films and coatings is distinctly the same. However, edible films and coatings differ in their processing and physicomechanical characteristics as they are designed to improve the shelf life, barrier, and nutritional properties of the food. With emerging concerns about sustainability, biomacromolecules have been widely considered in preparing edible films and coatings, which are Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) substances. Biopolymers, including polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids, are the main sources of preparing edible films and coatings. These biomacromolecules make stable colloidal dispersions that deliver processing convenience with various formulation, blending, casting, coating, and film-forming methods. Edible films and coating from biopolymers require improvements for their extended performance due to several structural and barrier limitations. Therefore, preparing blends and composites, incorporating target molecules to introduce different functionalities, and designing complex multilayers are among the many recent research approaches developed to overcome those limitations. These recent research approaches ensure enhanced food preservation and extended shelf life, essential requirements of food waste management, with or without minimal influence on the texture, flavor, and nutritional value of food and vegetables. This review focuses on the recent developments in edible films and coatings for fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, this review includes characteristics and functionalities, processing, structural and chemical significance, different sources and their performances, health effects, and recent trends related to edible films and coatings.

Protected cultivation in modern agriculture relies extensively on plastic-originated mulch films, nets, packaging, piping, silage, and various applications. Polyolefins synthesized from petrochemical routes are vastly consumed in plasticulture, wherein PP and PE are the dominant commodity plastics. Imposing substantial impacts on our geosphere and humankind, plastics in soil threaten food security, health, and the environment. Mismanaged plastics are not biodegradable under natural conditions and generate problematic emerging pollutants such as nano-micro plastics. Post-consumed petrochemical plastics from agriculture face many challenges in recycling and reusing due to soil contamination in fulfilling the zero waste hierarchy. Hence, biodegradable polymers from renewable sources for agricultural applications are pragmatic as mitigation. Starch is one of the most abundant biodegradable biopolymers from renewable sources; it also contains tunable thermoplastic properties suitable for diverse applications in agriculture. Functional performances of starch such as physicomechanical, barrier, and surface chemistry may be altered for extended agricultural applications. Furthermore, starch can be a multidimensional additive for plasticulture that can function as a filler, a metaphase component in blends/composites, a plasticizer, an efficient carrier for active delivery of biocides, etc. A substantial fraction of food and agricultural wastes and surpluses of starch sources are underutilized, without harnessing useful resources for agriscience. Hence, this review proposes reliable solutions from starch toward timely implementation of sustainable practices, circular economy, waste remediation, and green chemistry for plasticulture in agriscience

This research aims at minimizing environmental pollution by effluents discharged from current textile dyeing processes. The reduction of pollution is approached with a nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) dyeing method. In the commonly used exhaust reactive dye bath cotton dyeing process, water effluents are contaminated with unreacted dyes and dyeing formulation auxiliaries amid the consumption of 20 weight units of water per weight unit of colored textile products. It was recently demonstrated that using reactive dye-colored NFC hydrogels—an aqueous dispersion of the NFC pigment—a sustainable dye carrier—results in 6-fold reduction in consumption of water and auxiliaries. Here, we report further developments of this technology. Cotton fabrics and NFC hydrogels inherit a fraction of soluble polysugars that react and conjugate with the reactive dyes. These soluble dye-conjugated polysugars are released into the wastewater, thus resulting in water pollution and also in reduced efficiency of the dyeing process. We demonstrate here that post-treatment of NFC-colored cotton textiles with polycarboxylic acid secures permanent chemical grafting of the soluble dye-labeled polysugars and forms chemical cross-links with the NFC fibers on the cotton fabric via the esterification reaction. This combination leads to the improvement of dye fixation by 30% and reduces the dye discharge in the washing stage by 60%. This enhancement is approached without compromising the stiffness and breathability of the fabrics. The advanced textile method is tested for a series of reactive dyes covering the entire visual spectrum range.