Antimicrobial packaging film with finger wrinkles structures based on egg white and chitosan coating for fruit preservation

Developing a high-barrier, green, and sustainable functional packaging film material to address food safety is urgently needed but remains a significant challenge. Natural biopolymers possess the potential to serve as contemporary eco-friendly food packaging materials due to their exceptional biocompatibility and biodegradability. Herein, we present a novel class of renewable and degradable films fashioned from Egg white protein (EWP) and chitosan (CS) biopolymers. And we detected their structural, physical, and functional properties to ensure a nanocomposite film with the optimal performances. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images demonstrated a consistent enhancement in the crinkle level of the composite film as the mass ratio of CS increased. Furthermore, the tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EAB) of these films were enhanced to 402.6 % and 107.9 %, respectively. Nevertheless, the oxygen permeability (OP) and water vapor permeability (WVP) were notably reduced to 68.1 % and 93.3 %, respectively. Compared to EWP/CS/Cur0, the antibacterial rate of prepared EWP/CS/Cur(Xie et al., 2024 [3]) films were enhanced to 105.4 % and 183.9 % for E. coli and S. aureus, respectively. During banana and green grape preservation, these functional films significantly retarded the decline in weight and firmness. Therefore, EWP/CS films augmented with bioactive materials could potentially serve as preservation packaging, exhibiting notable ecological advantages and recyclability potential, thus demonstrating considerable potential as a substitution for conventional plastic storage packages.