Bigi Francesco, Maurizzi Enrico, Haghighi Hossein, Siesler Heinz Wilhelm, Licciardello Fabio, Pulvirenti Andrea
Department of Life Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, 42015 Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141 Essen, Germany.
Foods. 2023 Feb 24;12(5):960. doi: 10.3390/foods12050960.
To date, approximately 30-50% of food is wasted from post-harvesting to consumer usage. Typical examples of food by-products are fruit peels and pomace, seeds, and others. A large part of these matrices is still discarded in landfills, while a small portion is valorized for bioprocessing. In this context, a feasible strategy to valorize food by-products consists of their use for the production of bioactive compounds and nanofillers, which can be further used to functionalize biobased packaging materials. The focus of this research was to create an efficient methodology for the extraction of cellulose from leftover orange peel after juice processing and for its conversion into cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) for use in bionanocomposite films for packaging materials. Orange CNCs were characterized by TEM and XRD analyses and added as reinforcing agents into chitosan/hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (CS/HPMC) films enriched with lauroyl arginate ethyl (LAE®). It was evaluated how CNCs and LAE® affected the technical and functional characteristics of CS/HPMC films. CNCs revealed needle-like shapes with an aspect ratio of 12.5, and average length and width of 500 nm and 40 nm, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy confirmed the high compatibility of the CS/HPMC blend with CNCs and LAE®. The inclusion of CNCs increased the films' tensile strength, light barrier, and water vapor barrier properties while reducing their water solubility. The addition of LAE® improved the films' flexibility and gave them biocidal efficacy against the main bacterial pathogens that cause foodborne illness, such as , , , and .
迄今为止，从收获后到消费者使用阶段，约30%-50%的食物被浪费。食品副产品的典型例子有果皮、果渣、种子等。这些基质的很大一部分仍被丢弃在垃圾填埋场，只有一小部分被用于生物加工以实现其价值。在这种背景下，一种可行的使食品副产品增值的策略是将它们用于生产生物活性化合物和纳米填料，这些物质可进一步用于使生物基包装材料功能化。本研究的重点是创建一种高效的方法，用于从果汁加工后的剩余橙皮中提取纤维素，并将其转化为纤维素纳米晶体（CNC），用于包装材料的生物纳米复合薄膜。通过透射电子显微镜（TEM）和X射线衍射（XRD）分析对橙CNC进行了表征，并将其作为增强剂添加到富含月桂酰精氨酸乙酯（LAE®）的壳聚糖/羟丙基甲基纤维素（CS/HPMC）薄膜中。评估了CNC和LAE®对CS/HPMC薄膜的技术和功能特性的影响。CNC呈针状，长径比为12.5，平均长度和宽度分别为500 nm和40 nm。扫描电子显微镜和红外光谱证实了CS/HPMC共混物与CNC和LAE®具有高度相容性。加入CNC提高了薄膜的拉伸强度、阻光性和水蒸气阻隔性能，同时降低了它们的水溶性。添加LAE®提高了薄膜的柔韧性，并赋予它们对导致食源性疾病的主要细菌病原体（如 、 、 和 ）的杀菌功效。
