Comparative performance of bio-based coatings formulated with cellulose, chitin, and chitosan nanomaterials suitable for fruit preservation
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Fruit spoilage generates huge economic losses annually. In order to decrease the impact of fruit spoilage, and meet consumers’ demand for healthy, fresh, and natural fruits, the utilization of bio-based coatings in fruit preservation is increasing (Lacroix & Vu, 2014). Among the coating materials, cellulose, chitin, and chitosan are the most promising candidates because they are renewable, biocompatible, non–toxic, biodegradable, and low cost (Salmon & Hudson, 1997). Cellulose, chitin, or chitosan coatings help preserve color, decrease weight loss, enhance antimicrobial activity, and extend fruit shelf life (Elsabee & Abdou, 2013). For example, the emulsion coating of cellulose nanomaterial delayed the ripening process and decreased the postharvest weight loss of banana postharvest (Deng, Jung, Simonsen, & Zhao, 2017). Chitin treatment enhanced Botrytis cinerea resistance of tomatoes (Sun, Fu et al., 2018; Sun, Mei et al., 2018; Sun, Wu et al., 2018) while mangos coated with high molecular weight chitosan exhibited lower ethylene release rate and higher antioxidant level (Jongsri, Wangsomboondee, Rojsitthisak, & Seraypheap, 2016). One of the drawbacks of chitosan is poor barrier performance (Elsabee & Abdou, 2013), and blending with some nano structured materials such as montmorillonite (Xu, Qin, & Ren, 2018), nano-silica (Shi et al., 2013) can significantly improve this property.
Currently, US FDA offers Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status to several types of cellulose (e.g., microcrystalline cellulose, carboxymethyl cellulose, ethyl cellulose). However, chitin and chitosan do not have GRAS status yet. Several studies have been published using sustainable nanomaterials (SNMs), including nanocellulose, nanochitin, and nanochitosan, in fruit coatings. However, less attention has been given to study the influential factors of SNMs on the fruit coating process and coating performance. The fruit coating process is greatly influenced by the properties of the coating suspensions and fruit surfaces. The coating suspension properties include particle size, chemical structure, and morphology as well as suspension viscosity and loading level. The fruit surface properties include surface morphology, surface wax and cutin content, and surface wettability (Lopez-Polo, Silva-Weiss, Zamorano, & Osorio, 2020). It is thus critical to understand SNMs’ effect on fruit coating and spoilage process due to fungi exposure (Tripathi & Dubey, 2004) with the development of a sprayable coating method (Andrade, Skurtys, & Osorio, 2013).
The objective of the present work was to provide a comparative study on the fruit coating process and storage performance of SNMs. Nine types of SNMs were prepared, which include wood cellulose nanocrystals (WCNCs), wood cellulose nanofibers (WCNFs), sugarcane cellulose nanofibers (SCNFs), chitin nanofibers (CTNFs), chitosan nanofibers (CSNFs), and their blended suspensions. Properties of the SNMs and selected fruits (strawberry, avocado, banana, kiwi, tomato, nectarine, and apricot) were investigated to characterize the SNM’s morphology, surface chemical structure and suspension rheology as well as fruit surface microstructure and wettability. Various surface wetting models were applied to establish the fruit wetting behavior and to construct the governing wetting envelopes of the fruit surfaces. Because of its commercial importance and easiness to deterioration, strawberry was chosen as an example to test antifungal activity of the developed coatings and treatment effect on fruit freshness through fruit weight loss and color change measurements.
Section snippets
Materials
Chitosan powder with a deacetylation degree of 90 % and molecular weights (MW) of 161 kDa was provided by Vanson HaloSource Co. (Raymond, WA, USA) (Liu, Wu, Chang, & Gao, 2011). Sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, ethanol, lithium chloride, lithium chloride (LiCl), 1,3-dimethyl-2-imidazolidinone (DMI) reagent grade, and dextran standards used for Refractive Index Detector (RID) calibration including 10 kDa (D-9260), 66.9 kDa (D-1537), 167 kDa (D-4876) and 511 kDa (D-5251) were
Morphology and molecular weight
TEM images of different types of nanomaterials are shown in Fig. 1 (WCNCs, WCNFs, and SCNFs in Fig. 1a–c; and CTNFs and CSNFs in Fig. 1d-e). WCNCs exhibited a rod-like structure with diameters ranging from 5 to 20 nm (blue label in Fig. 1a). The length of WCNCs were between 100 and 200 nm (yellow label in Fig. 1a). WCNFs had a fibril structure with diameters ranged from 20 to 40 nm. The length of WCNFs was up to several micrometers. The diameters of SCNFs and CTNFs were smaller compared with
Conclusion
Aqueous suspensions of the manufactured SNM exhibited a shear thinning behavior, which enabled them to be sprayed on fruit surface easily. The actual viscosities of the suspensions were governed by the material aspect ratio and concentrations. The fruit surface morphology (e.g., trichomes, seeds), surface wax components and cutin monomers (e.g. long-chain fatty alcohols, C16 monomers) had a great influence on the fruit surface free energy. The OWRK model is recommended to be used in the
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Xiuxuan Sun: Data curation, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Qinglin Wu: Review & editing, Funding acquisition, Project administration. David H. Picha: review & editing. Mary Helen Fergruson: review & editing. Ikenna E. Ndukwe: Data curation, Investigation, Writing. Parastoo Azadi: review.
Acknowledgments
This collaborative study was carried out with support from USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program – Farm Bill (SCBGP–FB, USA), Louisiana Board of Regents (LEQSF(2020–23)–RD–B–02, USA), and U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (DE-SC0015662).
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