Carboxymethyl cellulose/cellulose nanocrystals immobilized silver nanoparticles as an effective coating to improve barrier and antibacterial properties of paper for food packaging applications.

A new natural formulation composed of CMC and various contents of CNC immobilized AgNPs (CNC@AgNPs) was developed for paper coating. The mechanical strength, water vapor and air barrier properties, and antibacterial activities of CMC/CNC@AgNPs coated paper improved with the increasing content of CNC@AgNPs. CMC/CNC@AgNPs7 % coated paper exhibited 1.26 times increase in tensile strength, 45.4 % decrease in WVP, 93.3 % reduction in air permeability as well as the best antibacterial activities against E.coli and S.aureus compared with uncoated paper. Moreover, the cumulative release rate of AgNPs from coated paper significantly reduced due to the immobilization effect of CNC on AgNPs. Furthermore, CMC/CNC@AgNPs coated paper was used to package strawberries under ambient conditions. The results showed that coated paper could maintain better strawberries quality compared with unpackaged strawberries and extend the shelf-life of strawberries to 7 days. Therefore, the prepared CMC/CNC@AgNPs coated paper will have a great application prospect in the food packaging.