APPLICATION OF NANOTECHNOLOGY IN FOOD PACKAGING

Abstract

Nanotechnology involves the design, production and use of structures through control of the size and shape of the materials at the nanometre scale. Also, nanomaterials have been already applied in many fields of human life. Nanocomposites have already led to several innovations with potential applications in the food packaging sector. The use of nanocomposite formulations is expected to considerably enhance the shelf-life of many types of food. This improvement can lead to lower weight packages because less material is needed to obtain the same or even better barrier properties. This, in turn, can lead to reduced package cost with less packaging waste. Antimicrobial packaging is another area with high potential for applying nanocomposite technology. Nanostructured antimicrobials have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio when compared with their higher scale counterparts. Therefore, antimicrobial nanocomposite packaging systems are supposed to be particularly efficient in their activities against microbial cells. In this review, definition of nanomaterials is presented. Besides, the paper shows examples of nanocomposities and antimicrobial nanopackaging mainly with the use of nanosilver. Moreover, nanoparticles such ZnO, TiO2, MgO and nanosensors in packaging were presented.