College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Agro-Food Processing, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; Ningbo Research Institute, Zhejiang University, Ningbo 315100, China.
Carbohydr Polym. 2021 Aug 15;266:118102. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118102. Epub 2021 Apr 24.
In this study, the alginate/chitosan composite aerogels based on electrostatic interactions and noncovalent crosslinking were fabricated using sol-gel method followed by freeze-drying process. The solution property results showed that with the addition of chitosan in alginate solution, a tighter network was induced by the more entangled molecular chains. The aerogel morphology observations showed that the pore diameter decreased with the increasing weight ratio of chitosan in the aerogels, but was even much lower after the crosslinking of excess alginate with calcium ions. After crosslinking, the aerogels presented the improved thermal stability and higher mechanical properties, as well as stronger antibacterial activities against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Therefore, the enhanced physical and antimicrobial properties of the alginate/chitosan aerogels may be achieved by modulation of electrostatic interactions and noncovalent crosslinking, suggesting the promising applications of these composite aerogels as active food packaging materials for antimicrobial purpose.
在这项研究中，通过溶胶-凝胶法结合冷冻干燥工艺制备了基于静电相互作用和非共价交联的海藻酸钠/壳聚糖复合气凝胶。溶液性能结果表明，随着壳聚糖在海藻酸钠溶液中添加量的增加，分子链的缠结程度更高，从而诱导形成更紧密的网络。气凝胶形貌观察表明，随着气凝胶中壳聚糖重量比的增加，孔径减小，但在过量海藻酸钠与钙离子交联后，孔径甚至更低。交联后，气凝胶的热稳定性提高，力学性能增强，对金黄色葡萄球菌和大肠杆菌的抗菌活性增强。因此，通过调节静电相互作用和非共价交联，可以获得海藻酸钠/壳聚糖气凝胶增强的物理和抗菌性能，这表明这些复合气凝胶作为具有抗菌作用的活性食品包装材料具有广阔的应用前景。
