Review of Mechanical Properties, Migration, and Potential Applications in Active Food Packaging Systems Containing Nanoclays and Nanosilver

Abstract

The incorporation of nanomaterials into a range of polymeric materials shows great potential for developing new active food packaging systems. Although there are many suggested benefits of nanoparticles (NPs) in food packaging, there are also potential risks due to the possibility of such particles migrating into foodstuffs. This has obvious implications for human health and it may also negatively impact on marketing and consumer confidence. This review focuses on 2 particular types of nanomaterials: nanoclays and nanosilver, with a view to examining the effects of these on system mechanical properties (nanoclays) and antimicrobial efficacy (nanosilver). It further reports on the various migration studies, techniques for characterization, and measurement of NPs as well as the potential migration of NPs from packaging into foodstuffs. Assessment of the literature to date suggests there is an urgent need for further research in order to devise better NP detection methods and to determine the likelihood of their migration from packaging materials into foodstuffs.

Active Packaging Applications for Food

“…There is an increasing trend to natural high‐quality foods, which are nonprocessed or minimally processed, do not contain preservatives, but offer an acceptable shelf‐life (Singh and others ; Gerez and others ). In response, the protective function of packaging has been refined and improved leading to the development of new packaging technologies, such as modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) (Ohlsson and Bengtsson ; Rodriguez‐Aguilera and Oliveira ; Sandhya ; Cooksey ; Zhuang and others ), active packaging (AP) (Singh and others ; Yildirim ; Arvanitoyannis and Oikonomou ; Pereira de Abreu and others ; Dobrucka and Cierpiszewski ; Realini and Marcos ; Kuorwel and others ; Brockgreitens and Abbas ), smart and intelligent packaging (SP/IP) (Kerry and Butler ; Lee and Rahman ; Realini and Marcos ; Biji and others ; Brockgreitens and Abbas ), and the application of nanomaterials (Imran and others ; Llorens and others ; Rhim and others ; Reig and others ; Rhim and Kim ; Bumbudsanpharoke and others ). The emphasis of this review is on active packaging.…”

“…A large variety of active packaging systems has been developed and, to date, numerous reviews have emphasized the potential of active packaging technologies to supply safer, “healthier,” and higher‐quality foods to the consumer (Kuorwel and others ; Brockgreitens and Abbas ). However, the number of reviews presenting the benefits of active packaging technologies applied to specific food products is limited (Llorens and others ; Pereira de Abreu and others ; Cichello ).…”

Development of active, nanoparticle, antimicrobial technologies for muscle-based packaging applications

“…Identifying and quantifying the hazards presented by nanoparticles, if any, and addressing them in order to reduce eventually determined risks are, and will be, a key research topic in the future of food packaging research. A good number of studies have been targeted at the identification of nanomaterial hazards in food packaging, however, it is acknowledged that there is still considerable uncertainty about the potential harmful effects associated with nanoscale particles (Cushen, Kerry, Morris, Cruz-Romero, & Cummins, 2013, 2014a, 2014bHannon et al, 2015;Kuorwel, Cran, Orbell, Buddhadasa, & Bigger, 2015;Llorens, Lloret, Picouet, Trbojevich, & Fernandez, 2012;Panea, Ripoll, González, Fernández-Cuello, & Albertí, 2014 (Donaldson, Stone, Tran, Kreyling, & Borm, 2004;Goodman, McCusker, Yilmaz, & Rotello, 2004;Sun, Fu, Lin, & Huang, 2002). Nanoparticles of a few nanometers in size can also cross the cell membrane and enter the cell cytoplasm.…”

Transformation of food packaging from passive to innovative via nanotechnology: concepts and critiques

“…The measurement of engineered nanomaterials and especially metallic nanoparticles which exhibit higher dependency in thermodynamic conditions in food matrix imposes difficulties in standardizing their validation protocols . In addition, the nanomaterials present in food matrix might be at low concentration and commonly nanomaterials analysis deploys various detection techniques in order to gather the reliable information for risk assessment (Blasco and Picó 2011;Kuorwel et al 2015). Some of the sensitive analytical approaches which are commonly used in analysis of nanomaterials can be subdivided into three groups, (i) imaging techniques like atomic force microscope, SEM and TEM, (ii) spectroscopic techniques including X-ray diffraction and small/wide-angle X-ray scattering, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and (iv) quantitative analytical techniques (Blasco and Picó 2011;Dasgupta et al 2015;Huang et al 2015;Kuorwel et al 2015).…”