Cerdá-Gandia Raúl, Agüero Ángel, Arrieta Marina Patricia, Fenollar Octavio
Instituto Universitario de Investigación de Tecnología de Materiales (IUITM), Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Plaza Ferrándiz y Carbonell 1, 03801 Alcoy, Spain.
FAPERIN S.L. Av. de los Trabajadores, 27, 03430 Onil, Spain.
Polymers (Basel). 2024 Sep 18;16(18):2632. doi: 10.3390/polym16182632.
Essential oils are interesting active additives for packaging manufacturing as they can provide the final material with active functionalities. However, they are frequently volatile compounds and can be degraded during plastic processing. In this work (RO) essential oil was encapsulated into Diatomaceous earth (DE) microparticles and into Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) and further used to produce eco-friendly active packaging based on polylactic acid (PLA). PLA-based composites and nanocoposites films based on PLA reinforced with DE + RO and HNTs + RO, respectively, were developed by melt extrusion followed by cast-film, simulating the industrial processing conditions. As these materials are intended as active food packaging films, the obtained materials were fully characterized in terms of their mechanical, thermal and structural properties, while migration of antioxidant RO was also assessed as well as the compostability at laboratory scale level. Both DE and HNTs were able to protect the (RO) from thermal degradation during processing, allowing to obtain films with antioxidant properties as demonstrated by the antioxidant assays after the materials were exposed for 10 days to a fatty food simulant. The results showed that incorporating encapsulated in either DE or HNTs and the good dispersion of such particles into the PLA matrix strengthened its mechanical performance and sped up the disintegration under composting conditions of PLA, while allowing to obtain films with antioxidant properties of interest as antioxidant active food packaging materials.
精油是包装制造中有趣的活性添加剂，因为它们可以为最终材料提供活性功能。然而，它们通常是挥发性化合物，在塑料加工过程中可能会降解。在这项工作中，（RO）精油被封装到硅藻土（DE）微粒和埃洛石纳米管（HNTs）中，并进一步用于生产基于聚乳酸（PLA）的环保活性包装。分别通过熔融挤出然后流延成膜，模拟工业加工条件，开发了基于DE + RO和HNTs + RO增强的PLA基复合材料和纳米复合材料薄膜。由于这些材料旨在用作活性食品包装薄膜，因此对所得材料的机械、热和结构性能进行了全面表征，同时还评估了抗氧化剂RO的迁移以及实验室规模水平下的可堆肥性。DE和HNTs都能够在加工过程中保护（RO）免于热降解，从而获得具有抗氧化性能的薄膜，这在材料暴露于脂肪食品模拟物10天后的抗氧化测定中得到了证明。结果表明，将（RO）封装在DE或HNTs中，并使这些颗粒在PLA基质中良好分散，增强了其机械性能，并加快了PLA在堆肥条件下的崩解，同时获得了具有抗氧化性能的薄膜，作为抗氧化活性食品包装材料。
