Modern food packaging has many disadvantages. Turkish scientists tried to eliminate them by creating new material. Development helps to keep the product much longer. Meanwhile, US scientists have developed “smart” labels that will tell you when a product or cosmetic should be sent to the trash.
Sometimes it seems that fresh fruits, vegetables and meat spoil in the blink of an eye. Many manufacturers today use food-grade PVC films for food storage, which cannot be called the best packaging material. Recently, Turkish researchers from Sabancı University have created a new packaging film coated with nanotubes. The latter, in turn, are filled with a special essential oil. The development will help keep food fresh for a longer period.
The film not only prevents spoilage of the product, but also stops the growth of microbes. All this ultimately extends the shelf life of perishable products, according to a press release.
Dr. Hayriye Ünal of Sabancı University, who led the study, says: “Food packaging that can interact with food can help prevent the economic impact of product spoilage.” By the way, almost 20 percent of all food products are wasted due to overeating and careless use.
According to the scientist, “specialized films capable of preserving a wide range of products are in great demand.”
Today, researchers around the world are developing a number of alternative ways to preserve food. In particular, scientists are thinking about ecology and are trying to replace plastic. For example, American specialists made a new edible packaging for products from milk.
In addition, the developers want to create a versatile film that can cope with several food preservation problems at once, and this is not easy to achieve. The two main problems of modern films are bacterial contamination and permeability to oxygen and water vapor. Many scientists would also like to prevent the accumulation of ethylene (a chemical that promotes the rapid ripening of various fruits) inside the package.
Dr. Unal points out that many companies are already making films to keep fruits and vegetables from drying out. But adding additional properties to such a film is still a problem.
Turkish scientists, trying to solve all the problems, began to work with plastic film. They included nanotubes from the mineral halloysite into the composition of the material. The goal is to prevent the accumulation of ethylene.
Such “clay” hollow cylinders of very small size do not allow oxygen to enter under the film, and also stop water vapor and other gases from “escape”. Moreover, the embedded nanotubes keep ethylene from accumulating, since they themselves absorb it.
The researchers filled these nanotubes with a natural antibacterial essential oil, carvacrol, previously found in thyme and oregano. The scientists then covered the inside of the film with them to kill the microbes.
During the tests, scientists wrapped tomatoes, bananas and chicken in new packaging to compare the development efficiency with ordinary materials. “Control participants” were wrapped in plain polyethylene. Ten days later, the tomatoes from the first group were better preserved than the products from the second group.
The new film also kept the bananas firm and healthy yellow for six days. On the same chicken, wrapped in a new material (it was stored in the refrigerator for a day), a smaller amount of bacteria was found than on a carcass stored in polyethylene.
The results are promising. However, more research is needed to prove the safety and non-toxicity of the new material. Only after that it will be possible to talk about the mass production of a new cling film, the authors of the development conclude.
We add that it is not only perishable products that have to be preserved. Many people forget to check the expiration date of “long-playing” cosmetics or products that also need to be kept in the refrigerator. All this is fraught with the appearance of allergies or even poisoning. A new “smart” sticker created by scientists from Clarkson University will help in this matter.
They have developed a sensor containing nanostructures. The latter changes color when these same nanostructures bind to substances that indicate product spoilage or contamination with bacteria.
