A Review on Replacing Food Packaging Plastics with Nature-Inspired Bio-Based Materials.

Food packaging is critical to delaying food spoilage, maintaining food quality, reducing food waste, and ensuring food safety. However, the environmental problems associated with petroleum-based packaging materials have led to a search for sustainable alternatives. Bio-based materials are emerging as such alternatives, but they have limitations such as low mechanical strength and poor moisture resistance. Fortunately, nature's insights guide solutions to these challenges, propelling the evolution of high-performance bio-based packaging. These new food packaging materials are characterized by impact resistance, superhydrophobicity, self-healing capabilities, dynamic controlled release, high mechanical strength, and real-time freshness monitoring. Nature-inspired strategies not only focus on enhancing material performance but also introduce innovative design concepts that effectively avoid the homogenization of food packaging and inspire researchers to develop diverse, cutting-edge solutions. Overcoming the existing problems of bio-based materials and endowing them with breakthrough properties are key drivers for their replacement of food packaging plastics. This review provides insights into the application of biomimetics in enhancing the functionality of bio-based materials and clearly articulates the key drivers for the replacement of plastic food packaging by bio-based materials. By systematically integrating existing research findings, this paper identifies the challenges facing nature-inspired food packaging innovations and points the way to their future development.