Chitosan Pretreatment: Evidence of Enhanced Mechanical Stability and Adsorption Capacity to Produce a Hybrid Material

Securing a food supply is a global issue that must be integrated into a sustainable framework to mitigate the effects of climate change. This study focuses on the synthesis of a hybrid material for detecting heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs), which are potential mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds generated during the heat processing of food. A novel approach was applied to produce films based on chitosan biopolymer incorporated with [Fe(CN)5(OH2)]3−, CS-Fe, which functions as the active moiety for the detection of quinoxaline (IQx), a molecule similar to HAAs. The pretreatment of the chitosan (CS) films significantly improved mechanical stability and more than doubled the adsorption capacity for [Fe(CN)5(OH2)]3−. The measurements from real samples indicated that the CS-Fe film can selectively detect IQx, even amidst common interfering amino acids like methionine, tryptophan, and histidine. In summary, the CS-Fe film may be regarded as an eco-friendly and cost-effective material suitable for food safety applications.