Hyaluronic acid/chitosan/pectin based edible composite antioxidant coatings for the preservation of fresh apricots

Abstract

Apricots have a considerably short shelf-life with high sensitivity to degradation. In this study, hyaluronic acid is blended with pectin and chitosan to produce active edible coatings for the preservation of fresh postharvest apricots and extend their shelf-life. The objective of this study is to study the interplay between hyaluronic acid and pectin in edible coatings. The blended coatings are designed to take advantage of the antioxidant properties of both hyaluronic acid and pectin. The fruit preservation effectiveness of developed coatings is investigated over a 21 days storage period. The developed edible coatings exhibit significant fruit preservation characteristics in terms of weight loss, pH, titratable acidity and total solids content, and maintaining the antioxidant properties of coated fruits as measured through total phenolic content, change in ascorbic acid content and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay compared to uncoated control fruits. We observed that a fine balance between the amount of hyaluronic acid and pectin is required to achieve optimal fruit preservation during the 21 days of storage with the best performance recorded for coatings containing marginally higher concentration of hyaluronic acid than pectin.