Valorization of banana flower waste for biopolymer coatings to enhance post-harvest quality of black grapes.

Banana is one of the most consumed fruits globally, but only a part of it is consumed and the rest of the plant is disposed of which generates a large amount of waste. This paper focuses on how banana waste (Banana flowers) can be utilized for the isolation of cellulose. The effective isolation of cellulose from banana flowers is examined in this work as a potential sustainable and profitable source. The cellulose extraction from banana flowers was done using combination of solvent extraction, alkali treatment and bleaching and the yield obtained from the banana flower was 58.37 ± 0.03% (w/w). The purity and structural characteristics of the isolated cellulose are characterized by using FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, DSC, and TGA. The isolated cellulose was subjected to shelf-life extension property study using black grapes. The shelf-life extension was most significant for black grapes coated with 1% cellulose with a significant reduction of weight loss (75.40 ± 1.40%) as compared to the uncoated grapes (14.40 ± 0.18%) when maintained at room temperature for 10 days. The results demonstrated the viability of using banana flowers, an underutilized and renewable resource for cellulose isolation, advancing the development of environmentally friendly substitutes in the material industry.