Polymer Nanocomposites: Alternative to Reduce Environmental Impact of Non‐Biodegradable Food Packaging Materials

The strategic applications of natural polymer nanocomposites in food packaging and agriculture: Chances, challenges, and consumers’ perception

“…2014 ). The natural easy biodegradable polymeric materials include proteins (soy, wheat, corn, gluten, whey, collagen, gelatin, and albumin), polysaccharides (chitosan, alginates, starch, cellulose, and chitin), nucleic acids and lipids (bees, wax, and free fatty acids), carbohydrates (pullulan and curdlan), polyhydroxy butyrate (PHB), polyhydroxyalkanoic acids ( Steinbüchel 2005 ; Mathew and Radhakrishnan, 2019 ; Chaudhary et al, 2020 ; Panchal and Vasava, 2022 ) while these slowly biodegradable compounds belong to polyphenols and polyisoprenoids that are represented by lignin and poly (cis-1,4-isoprene), respectively ( Steinbüchel 2005 ).…”

“…The synthetic biodegradable biopolymers include poly (lactic acid) (PLA), poly-(glycolic acid) (PGA), poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), poly (butylene succinate) (PBA), polycaprolactone (PCL), poly (ethylene adipate) (PEA), poly (p-dioxanone) (PDS), and their copolymers ( Rodrigues and Vieira, 2019 ; Panchal and Vasava, 2022 ). In turn, non-biodegradable synthetic polymers can be categorized into high-density (HDPE) and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) including e.g., ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) ( Mathew and Radhskrishnan, 2019 ). In fact, non-degradable polymers have created several environmental problems and therefore biodegradable polymers are gaining ground ( Clarinval and Halleux, 2005 ; Karimi Sani et al, 2023 ).…”

“…A significantly improved alternative to conventionally used polymers is nanocomposites, i.e., biopolymers reinforced by nanofillers ( Mathew and Radhakrishnan, 2019 ). Many organic and inorganic materials such as silica NPs, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), nanosheets, graphene, silver, copper, zinc, titanium dioxide, copper oxide, zinc oxide, zirconium oxide nanoparticles, cellulose nanofibers, starch nanocrystals, chitosan, and chitin whiskers, clay nanomaterials (montmorillonite, kaolinite, halloysite, saponite, hectorite, and laponite) find application as fillers for improving polymer properties ( Albdiry and Yousif, 2019 ; Lin et al, 2019 ; Olivera et al, 2019 ; Karimi Sani et al, 2021 ).…”

“…The development of polymer nanocomposites show more benefits and different mechanical, thermal, optical, and physico-chemical properties to pure polymers that can be used for variable applications ( Duncan, 2011 ; Mathew and Radhakrishnan, 2019 ; Rahim et al, 2020 ) and also offers great functionality ( Kausar, 2020 ; Karimi Sani et al, 2021 ).…”