Development of green solvent extracted bioactive curcumin incorporated biodegradable hydroxyethyl cellulose-formaldehyde crosslinked membranes for food packaging application.

Hydroxyethyl cellulose-based biodegradable polymers incorporated with bioactive compounds are eco-friendly and healthy membranes, also an alternative to plastic. Currently, biodegradable food packaging materials are gaining significant attention from the scientific community due to their rapid demand. Also, understanding the reactivity in relation to chemical structure is crucial for developing sustainable biodegradable membranes. In this study, we have synthesized curcumin employing the Soxhlet extraction technique using mixture of 40% ethanol and 60% water as a solvent. The green solvent-extracted curcumin particles were then incorporated into hydroxyethyl cellulose-formaldehyde crosslinked membranes. The physicochemical properties were characterised using various analytical techniques. The moisture uptake, oxidative stability, mechanical stability, antimicrobial activity, and soil degradation studies were conducted to assess the suitability of the resulting membranes for the food packaging application. The pristine membrane exhibited a tensile strength of around 26.2 MPa, whereas the curcumin-loaded CF-Cn membrane displayed a much higher tensile strength of 51.6 MPa. Among the developed membranes, 3 mass% curcumin incorporated hydroxyethyl cellulose-formaldehyde crosslinked membrane exhibited an excellent antioxidant capacity (~59%), UV-radiation limiting, lower percentage of swelling ratio (28.63 ± 0.65), improved microbial inhibition value and importantly, real-world food packaging performance of the CF-Cn3 was conducted for value-added Indian blackberry fruits, also compared with the commercial plastic. The superior preservative behaviour of CF-Cn3 is owing to the presence of bioactive curcumin particles. All these results clearly indicate that the developed hydroxyethyl cellulose-based biodegradable membrane with 3 mass% curcumin (CF-Cn3) could be a good candidate for food packaging application.