Abstract:Food packaging technologies: an exploration of raw materials, development, and application
Packaging has a crucial role in preserving the quality and safety of food products. However, the growing utilization of synthetic materials, especially plastics, has resulted in a significant environmental pollution. Biodegradable resources, such as polysaccharides, proteins, and lipids, are being explored to produce alternatives to synthetic plastics. They can be obtained by polymerization in chemical processes, from microbial fermentation processes, or from agriculture and food industries. Since most of these biodegradable materials generally lack the barrier and mechanical properties required for food packaging, the application of strategies (e.g. cold plasma and UV radiation, incorporation of additives, and blending) to improve their performance is under study. Besides biodegradable materials, packaging technologies to prevent food degradation reactions (active packaging) and/or to inform consumers about products' freshness (intelligent packaging) have been explored too. These new materials have, in addition to the traditional packaging functions, the capacity to prolong the shelf life of products and ensure the safety of consumers. Various molecules, production processes, and applications were already explored while developing new technologies for food packaging. This seminar will present some raw materials from agriculture, functional substances and technologies used in the production of biodegradable and active packaging for food.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Viviane Romani is a Professor of Food Engineering at the State University of Midwest, UNICENTRO, Brazil. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Food Engineering (2012) from the State University of Santa Catarina (2012), Brazil. She received her master’s (2015) and Ph.D. (2019) degrees in Food Science and Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil. During her Ph.D. program, she was visiting student in the US where she developed projects at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2015-2016) and Cornell University (2018-2019). At Cornell University she was a Fulbright Scholar under the supervision of Prof. Julie Goddard. Since her master’s she is dedicated to improving food packaging sustainability and reducing food waste and environmental burden through the development of biodegradable and active materials.