Development of food packaging films from microorganism-generated polyhydroxyalkanoates

Abstract

Petroleum-based packaging materials cause environmental pollution and toxic substance accumulation because they cannot decompose in nature for a long time. To prevent these problems, a wide variety of food packaging materials emerge as alternatives to petroleum-based packaging materials. So far our colleagues have already discussed how polyscahharides and biopolymer-based nanocomposites are used in the development of food packaging films. As the last chapter of this Section, we will introduce how the microorganism-generated biopolymer, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) to be specific, is used in food packaging. PHAs, also known as green plastics, have positive social and environmental impact when compared to traditional plastics in terms of production and recycling. The food industry produces tons of waste every year, but these wastes have a wide range of applications such as chemistry, medicine, cosmetics or animal husbandry thanks to their biocompatibility and biodegradability. Considering that industrial wastes contain high quality polysaccharides, essential oils and proteins, using them in the production of biodegradable packaging will both reduce environmental problems and provide economic gain by reprocessing the wastes into products with higher added value. However, it has some disadvantages in competition with synthetic plastics and applications as biomaterials due to some properties such as poor mechanical properties, high production costs, limited functionality, incompatibility with conventional heat treatment techniques and susceptibility to thermal degradation. In this chapter, we will discuss the future and potential difficulties that may be experienced in the production or dissemination of PHA as a packaging material.