Banana Peel-Derived Biomaterials for Smart Wound Healing: Advances in Chitosan Composites, Responsive Dressings, and Future Applications

Wound management remains an important challenge in healthcare, particularly in chronic wounds, where prolonged inflammation, microbial contamination, oxidative stress, and delayed tissue regeneration can interfere with normal healing. Conventional wound dressings primarily protect the wound and absorb exudates; however, they may not provide active therapeutic support or information about changes in the wound environment. Consequently, increasing research attention has been directed towards multifunctional biomaterials capable of supporting tissue repair while maintaining a suitable wound microenvironment. Banana peel, an abundant agricultural by-product, contains potentially valuable phytochemicals and structural components that may support the development of sustainable wound-care materials. Experimental studies have investigated banana peel extracts for antioxidant, antimicrobial, and wound-healing activities. In addition, banana peel powder has been incorporated into chitosan-based films and nanocomposites to investigate their physicochemical properties and suitability for wound-dressing applications. Chitosan provides film-forming capacity, biocompatibility, and potential antimicrobial functionality, while banana-derived materials may contribute additional structural and biological properties. This review discusses the phytochemical characteristics of banana peel, its reported biological activities, and its application in chitosan-based wound dressings. It also examines the potential development of smart wound-dressings incorporating pH-responsive indicators, moisture monitoring, and infection-associated sensing. Although smart wound-dressings and responsive chitosan-based materials have been investigated in broader biomaterials research, an integrated banana-peel-based dressing with validated real-time sensing and clinical effectiveness remains an area for future investigation. Important challenges include extract standardisation, mechanical stability, sterilisation, biocompatibility, reproducibility, and clinical validation. Banana peel-derived biomaterials may therefore represent a promising approach to sustainable wound care, provided that their safety and performance are established through systematic experimental studies.