DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE ETHYLENE SCAVENGING PACKAGING MATERIAL BASED ON PINE NEEDLES BIOMASS

Abstract

The pines needle falls approximately 2–3 ha− 1 year− 1 on the forest floors resulting in a considerable amount of lignocellulosic biowaste. Pine leaves and pine cone waste can be used as sustainable lignocellulosic mass material, which can significantly contribute making paper-based packaging material. The utilization of plant waste as packaging materials has dual advantages via eliminating plastics in packaging and promoting a circular economy. Therefore, a study aimed to develop pine needles based lignocellulosic active paper and investigate the effect of 5, 20, and 30% (v/w) nano zeolite addition on the physical, mechanical, and microstructure properties of the papers. As the zeolite concentration was increased from 5% (w/v) to 30% (w/v) in the paper, enhanced water permeability was seen from 5.18 ± 0.34 - 3.88 ± 0.33 g/cm2 /day (PN/ZL 30% paper). The addition of 5% zeolite increased the tensile and burst strength from 19.53 ± 3.53 Nm/g and 3.63 ± 0.23 kg/cm2 , respectively. The significant increase in 3.44 times of porosity and 1.2 times of Cobb value compared to control. The alterations in terms of surface microstructure in the paper with 20, 30% zeolite were noticed whereas XRD illustrated the high compatibility among the lignocellulosic network of pines and zeolite. The pine needle paper with 30% zeolite possessed remarkable ethylene scavenging properties (62%), opening a way to valorize pine needle waste for food packaging applications. Further, another study planned to use pine cones from same source (Pinu roxburgii). In this study is to extract microfbrillated cellulose (MFC) from a novel and unexploited waste material, pine cone. The collected pine cone was used to isolate micro fibrillated cellulose using various chemical pre-treatment processes, which was then characterized to study their structural properties. The chemical analysis revealed that pine cone consists of around 37% cellulose, making them a confirmed candidate for the isolation of microfbrillated cellulose. FTIR results confirmed the removal of amorphous constituents like lignin and hemicellulose. X-ray difraction results demonstrated a significant increase in the crystallinity index of MFC (39.59%) compared to raw fibers (18.89%). The pine cone microfbrillated cellulose was determined to have a diameter of about 14.30 µm, which was much smaller than that of raw fibers. Further, we have developed ethylene scavenging paper with halloysite nanotubes (HNT) and Microfibrillated cellulose. The HNT loading affected the fabricated paper's physical and mechanical properties. Field emission scanning electron micrographs revealed that the paper had a rough surface, which was confirmed by atomic force microscopy. The transmission electron micrographs showed that MFC formed a network-like structure. The contact angle and water vapour transmission rate of neat and 30 % HNT were decreased from 64° to 52° and 5.7x10-3 to 5.5x10-3 g/cm2/day, respectively. The X-ray crystallography showed an increase in crystallinity with the addition of HNT and MFC. 30% HNT loading had shown the highest ethylene scavenging efficiency, 79.4% at 25 ℃. The results conclude that PL/MFC/HNT functional paper can be effectively utilized as ethylene scavenging material for active packaging applications. At last, with a consolidated use of Pine needle waste-based ethylene scavenging paper was developed by incorporating nanomaterial halloysite nanotube (HNT) and micro-fbrillated cellulose (MFC). The ethylene scavenging capacity was evaluated with the banana storage in the developed nanocomposite paper. The quality of bananas, such as color, physical appearance, total soluble solids (TSS), pH, and weight loss, was evaluated during banana storage. The PN/MFC/HNT 30% based packaging system delayed the ripening and senescence process. The color of banana, TSS, and pH was stable during the storage period in the PN/MFC/HNT 30%. In contrast, the banana in control PN packaging has accelerated quality decaying have been observed. The ethylene content was in the control PN packaging recorded at 633.67 μL L−1 and 424.12 μL L−1 in the PN/MFC/HNT 30% package on the last day of storage analysis. The nanocomposite paper with the waste pine needle with HNT and MFC has observed an excellent ethylene scavenging capacity with more than 200 μL L−1 on the 10th day of storage analysis. The developed paper has high potential in the active packaging application for fresh produces. Therefore, as per our best knowledge, this is the first study that utilized the pine needle waste and cone as active papers which will significantly contribute to the packaging industry and help in increasing self-life of fruits and vegetables.