Metal-organic framework-essential oil systems as controlled-release platforms for food applications: Encapsulation mechanisms, release kinetics, and structure-function relationships.

Global food spoilage and contamination challenge food security and supply-chain sustainability, while antimicrobial resistance drives antibiotic-free preservation strategies. Essential Oils (EOs) are attractive natural antimicrobials and antioxidants for active packaging, yet their use is constrained by volatility, chemical instability, poor dispersibility, and sensory intensity. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) offer a tunable host-guest platform to stabilize EOs and modulate their delivery via pore confinement and tailored surface chemistry, enabling sustained or stimuli-responsive release in packaging environments. This review advances a mechanism-to-application framework that links MOF-EO interactions to release behavior and preservation outcomes, while highlighting broader controlled-release principles relevant to volatile bioactive delivery. This review distinguishes true synergy performance exceeding the sum of MOF-only and EO-only contributions under dose-normalized conditions from additive/enabling effects arising primarily from EO retention and controlled release. Preservation performance is compared across food matrices using standardized endpoints, and key design trade-offs governing efficacy, sensory acceptance, and stability under realistic storage conditions are highlighted. This review provides actionable design rules and reporting recommendations to accelerate development of food-relevant MOF-EO active packaging systems.