Creation of Biodegradable Nonmigratory Active Packaging via Reactive Extrusion for the Reduction of Food Waste and Limited Environmental Impact

Of the 136 million tons of landfilled waste generated in 2014, 21.6% and 18.5% consist of food and plastics respectively. The rationale for this work is the current need to meet consumer demands for high quality packaged food products with limited artificial additives, packaging with reduced environmental impact, and limited food waste. The long-term goal of this project is to reduce waste and environmental impacts created by packaged foods. The contributions of the proposed research are expected to be through the application of polymer science to create a biodegradable food contact material with nonmigratory functionality for food packaging applications. This approach will limit waste and environmental impact from packaged food products by extending the usable time of the food itself while ridding the accumulation of packaging plastics in landfills via decomposition. Furthermore, processing biodegradable biopolymers via reactive extrusion removes the necessity for environmentally harmful solvents and decreases energy usage by continual processing of packaging. Contributions of this research will be significant as they will taper the food industry's reliance on petroleum-based packaging, restrain the environmental cost of disposable packaging, and increase utilization of available food thus lessening food losses. This goal will be accomplished with the following two objectives:To decrease oxidation of components in packaged food products and limit degradation of nutritional elements, transition metal scavenging groups will be immobilized to the biodegradable material.To decrease microbial degradation of packaged food products, antimicrobials will be grafted to the surface of the packaging material with the objective of limiting microbial spoilage.