Fabrication of food-safe superhydrophobic cellulose paper with improved moisture and air barrier properties

Hui Li; Yunqing He; Jin Yang; Xin Wang; Tianqing Lan; Lincai Peng

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.01.107

Fabrication of food-safe superhydrophobic cellulose paper with improved moisture and air barrier properties

Carbohydr Polym. 2019 May 1:211:22-30. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.01.107. Epub 2019 Feb 1.

Authors

Hui Li¹, Yunqing He², Jin Yang², Xin Wang², Tianqing Lan², Lincai Peng³

Affiliations

¹ Research Institute of Food Safety, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China. Electronic address: lihuiscut@126.com.
² Research Institute of Food Safety, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China.
³ Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China.

PMID: 30824083
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2019.01.107

Abstract

We presented a facile method for preparing a food-safe superhydrophobic packaging paper with improved moisture and air barrier properties in this study, which is combining construction of polymer-nanoclay hybrid multilayers with subsequent carnauba wax treatment. The polymer-nanoclay hybrid multilayers consisting of quadlayers of carrageenan (CR)/chitosan (CS)/montmorillonite (MMT)/CS were created using layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly. The surface chemical compositions, potentials and morphologies of the CR/CS/MMT/CS multilayer-modified paper samples were investigated. The paper sample modified with a wax-treated (CR/CS/MMT/CS)₂ multilayer gave a water contact angle of 151.4°. Compared with original paper, this superhydrophobic paper sample showed comparable tensile strength and excellent barrier properties against water vapor and air. Moreover, the obtained paper was used for strawberries packaging at ambient temperature, and it was very effective at reducing the weight loss and maintaining titratable acidity compared with the unpackaged strawberries, which might has a great potential as food packaging materials.

Keywords: Air barrier; Food packaging; Layer-by-layer; Moisture resistance; Superhydrophobic paper.