Production of Bio-sustainable Nanocomposites for Food Packaging

In 2018, the World Wildlife Fund reported that China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam contributed around 60% of the estimated 8 million tons of plastic that enter the world's oceans every year. The wide usage of plastic packaging has caused serious plastic waste disposal problems, which, in turn, create massive environmental pollution. This threat to the environment is due to the significant level of highly toxic emissions, composting management issues, and alteration in the carbon dioxide cycle. Furthermore, disposed packaging plastics in many countries are rarely recycled due to technical problems and socio-economic constraints. To make matters worse, Statia.com reported that food packaging consumption has increased during the COVID19 pandemic due to most people having to resort to buying bulk stocks of groceries and people doing take-out instead of dining out. Buying bulk stocks of food has also led to the discussion of one of the most important safety aspects of food packaging, which is its influence on the microbial shelf-life of food. Therefore, biodegradable antimicrobial packaging was introduced to combat this problem so that the shelf-life storing of the food can be extended, reducing toxic plastic waste. Although biopolymers are environmentally friendly, industrial applications are restricted due to several factors such as their oxygen/water vapor barriers, thermal resistance, and other mechanical properties. For these reasons, the researchers in this Vertically Integrated Project will focus on analyzing the antimicrobial properties of lignin by incorporating lignin and high lignin-coated cellulose nanocrystals in polymers to develop materials to meet this need.