Novel Humidity‐Responsive Nanofiber Film Based on Emulsion Electrospinning for Fruit Preservation
Zhenhua Cui, Gaihuan Ren, Dongxiang Li, Dongxu Lu, Xianglong Zheng, Yanchao Zhao, Yunhe Zhang, Shenpeng Hu, Wen Sun, Hongqin Yu, Weitao Zhou
Abstract
ABSTRACT The stimuli‐responsive active packaging materials have attracted large attention while using a simple method to prepare stimuli‐responsive active packaging materials remains a challenge. Herein, humidity‐responsive core‐shell poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL)‐citral nanofiber film was successfully prepared via simple emulsion electrospinning. The active substance citral was encapsulated in the core of the PVA/PCL‐citral nanofiber. The controllable release of citral from the core‐shell PVA/PCL‐citral nanofiber film was achieved by changing the microenvironment's humidity due to the PVA shell's swelling in high humidity. The PVA/PCL‐citral nanofiber film exhibited excellent antioxidant capacity with an ABTS free radical scavenging percentage of 88%. The nanofiber film also inhibited Escherichia coli (ATCC 29213) and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25922) with antimicrobial rates of 99.99% and 99.98%, respectively. A study on the biocompatible nanofiber film as packaging material was conducted on apricots, and the shelf life of apricots was extended to 9 days. Therefore, the humidity‐responsive PVA/PCL‐citral nanofiber film fabricated in this study has good application potential in antioxidant and antimicrobial packaging.