Essential oil-loaded electrospun fibers/nanofibers for active food packaging

With the increasing concern over environmental pollution caused by synthetic packaging, there is a growing demand for sustainable, biodegradable, and functional materials in food packaging. Also, the changes in retailing practice and consumer demand promote the development of active packaging (ACP) to improve the safety, quality, and shelf life of the packaged foods. Electrospinning is an effective and versatile method to prepare continuous polymer nanofibers (NFs) with unique properties such as high molecular orientation, high porosity, and large specific surface area. Benefitting from these outstanding and intriguing features, electrospun NFs have been employed as a promising candidate for the fabrication of ACP materials. Accordingly, electrospun NFs have been covalently or non-covalently functionalized for loading diverse bioactive compounds, including antimicrobial agents, antioxidant agents, oxygen scavengers, carbon dioxide emitters, and ethylene scavengers. Essential oils (EOs), as naturally occurring functional ingredients, have shown great prospects in ACP. EOs can inhibit the growth of superficial food pathogens, modify nutritional values without affecting the sensory qualities of food, and prolong the shelf life when used in food packaging. Understanding the different combinations of EOs and NFs in food packaging will improve the effectiveness of EO-NFs ACP in food preservation. This review discusses comprehensively the EOs-loaded electrospun fibers/NFs for ACP.