Nanotechnology and its challenges in the food sector: a review

Abstract

Antibacterial activity of nanoparticles has received significant attention worldwide because of their great physical and chemical stability, excellent magnetic properties, and large lattice constant values. These properties are predominate in the food science for enhancing the overall quality, shelf life, taste, flavor, process-ability, etc., of the food. Nanoparticles exhibit attractive antibacterial activity due to their increased specific surface area leading to enhanced surface reactivity. When nanoparticles are suspended in the biological culture, they encounter various biological interfaces, resulting from the presence of cellular moieties like DNA, proteins, lipids, polysaccharides, etc., which helps antibacterial properties in many ways. This paper reviews different methods used for the synthesis of nanoparticles but is specially focusing on the green synthesis methods owing to its non-toxic nature towards the environment. This review highlights their antibacterial application mainly in the food sector in the form of food-nanosensors, food-packaging, and food-additives. The possible mechanism of nanoparticles for their antibacterial behavior underlying the interaction of nano-particles with bacteria, (i) excessive ROS generation including hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), OH − (hydroxyl radicals), and O − 2 2 (peroxide); and (ii) precipitation of nano-particles on the bacterial exterior; which, disrupts the cellular activities, resulting in membranes disturbance. All these phenomena results in the inhibition of bacterial growth. Along with this, their current application and future perspectives in the food sector are also discussed. Nanoparticles help in destroying not only pathogens but also deadly fungi and viruses. Most importantly it is required to focus more on the crop processing and its containment to stop the post-harvesting loss. So, nanoparticles can act as a smart weapon towards the sustainable move.

Biosynthesis of selenium nanoparticles using plant extracts

“…In this section of review, the main applications of selenium nanoparticles synthesized using the extracts of plant materials are briefly described. More details can be found in several recent review papers [6][7][8][9][10][95][96][97][98][99].…”

“…Nanoscale selenium is of great interest as an additive to fertilizers [6,96,114,115]. The large surface area and small size of the nanomaterials could allow for enhanced interaction and efficient uptake of selenium for crop.…”

Antimicrobial Food Packaging with Biodegradable Polymers and Bacteriocins

“…Similar properties were demonstrated by the produced nanocomposite films containing nanoparticles of pediocin and ZnO against L. monocytogens and S. aureus [ 111 ]. The composites with the addition of ZnO are of great interest in the research area of food packaging materials due to their improved multifunctional characteristics such as their mechanical, barrier [ 114 , 115 ] and antimicrobial properties [ 116 ]. The addition of pediocin results in increased values of elongation at break.…”

Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC) Based Electrospun Composite Nanofiber Mats for Food Packaging

“…Different food packaging based on natural or synthetic polymers is available in markets to preserve food for longer shelf life [ 30 , 31 , 32 ]. However, nanofiber based food packaging is not common due to the cost, production, and availability of nanofibrous mats [ 33 , 34 , 35 ]. Depending on the type of food, preservation conditions also vary.…”