Abdallah Areej Fathelrahman, Mohamed Ainun Zuriyati, Siddiqui Areeba, Khan Hina, Tahir Paridah Md, Jawaid Mohammad
Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products (INTROP), Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Department of Forest Products and Industries, Faculty of Forestry, University of Khartoum, 13314, Shambat, North Khartoum, Sudan.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 29;15(1):31872. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-17210-y.
Despite being biodegradable, paper packages have restricted use in food packaging because of their strong tendency to absorb moisture and their high permeability to liquids and gasses from the environment. Consequently, investigating the application of biodegradable biopolymers, such as nanofibrillated cellulose and chitosan, to enhance characteristics is a pertinent technique. This study developed paper from unbleached bamboo alkaline sulfite anthraquinone and methanol (ASAM) pulps by incorporating nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) and the antimicrobial agent chitosan (CS) into the papermaking process, offering a sustainable solution for advanced food packaging systems. The objective of this research is to investigated the potential impact of varying concentrations of NFC (5% and 10%) and CS (0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, and 2%) on the physical, mechanical, thermal, barrier, and antimicrobial properties of unbleached bamboo ASAM pulp, considering 4.000 and 6.000 beating revolutions to enhance the mechanical, thermal, barrier, and antimicrobial properties. The reinforcement of NFC and CS has significant enhancements to the paper's properties. The results showed that incorporating 5% NFC and 1.5% chitosan at 6.000 beating revolutions has the optimum values of a tensile index and a burst index, where it reaches 85.16 Nm/g and 7.69 kPa m/g, respectively. Besides that, it exhibited sufficient thermal stability to be used for food packaging applications, with the onset temperature of thermal degradation about 258.28 °C. The smoothness and porosity showed increases of 11.93% and 96.35%, respectively. This reflects a decrease in air permeability. Additionally, the paper sheets demonstrated antimicrobial activity against various food-borne microorganisms a notable rise of 43.96% and 49.75% against Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans, respectively. It concluded that the ASAM-reinforced paper with these great properties exhibited a promising prospect in food packaging applications.
尽管纸包装是可生物降解的，但由于其强烈的吸湿倾向以及对来自环境的液体和气体的高渗透性，在食品包装中的使用受到限制。因此，研究可生物降解生物聚合物（如纳米纤化纤维素和壳聚糖）的应用以改善其特性是一种相关技术。本研究通过在造纸过程中加入纳米纤化纤维素（NFC）和抗菌剂壳聚糖（CS），从未漂白的竹碱性亚硫酸盐蒽醌和甲醇（ASAM）纸浆中制备纸张，为先进的食品包装系统提供了一种可持续的解决方案。本研究的目的是研究不同浓度的NFC（5%和10%）和CS（0.5%、1%、1.5%和2%）对未漂白竹ASAM纸浆的物理、机械、热、阻隔和抗菌性能的潜在影响，考虑4000和6000次打浆转数以增强机械、热、阻隔和抗菌性能。NFC和CS的增强对纸张性能有显著提升。结果表明，在6000次打浆转数下加入5%的NFC和1.5%的壳聚糖时，纸张的抗张指数和耐破指数达到最佳值，分别为85.16 Nm/g和7.69 kPa m/g。此外，它表现出足够的热稳定性，可用于食品包装应用，热降解起始温度约为258.28℃。平滑度和孔隙率分别增加了11.93%和96.35%。这反映了透气率的降低。此外，纸张对各种食源微生物表现出抗菌活性，对金黄色葡萄球菌和白色念珠菌的抗菌活性分别显著提高了43.96%和49.75%。研究得出结论，具有这些优异性能的ASAM增强纸在食品包装应用中展现出了广阔的前景。
