Nanocomposites: Application in Biodegradable Food Packaging Films.

Polymeric materials are widely used for food packaging applications and they
are practically non-degradable, representing a serious global environmental problem.
The use of biopolymer based packaging materials can solve the waste disposal
problem to a certain extent. However, the use of biopolymers has been limited because
of their poor mechanical and barrier properties. The problems with biopolymers are
taken care by entirely new emerging group of materials ‘’Bionanocomposites”. These
bionanocomposites are developed under the aegis of nanotechnology has potential
applications in the field of food packaging which are composed of biopolymers
reinforced with small quantities of nanoscale inclusions that have high aspect ratios
and able to improve the mechanical and barrier properties of the biopolymers.
Bionanocomposites based packaging materials have great potential for enhancing food
quality, safety and stability. This chapter describes different types of
bionanocomposites and their application in food packaging. Antimicrobial packaging is
one of the active food packaging technology offers several advantages compared with
the direct addition of preservatives into food products. This chapter also explores the
antimicrobial effectiveness of biopolymer with metallic nanocomposites based on zinc
oxide, titanium oxide and silver. In addition, modeling of nanocomposite films for
investigating the gas barrier properties, challenges involved in the nanocomposites
application in food packaging and safety issues are discussed.