Synergistic impact of cumin essential oil on enhancing of UV-blocking and antibacterial activity of biodegradable poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate)/clay platelets nanocomposites

Both biodegradable UV-blocking and antimicrobial films are extremely demanded, especially for food packaging to meet the increasing sustainable requirement for the human health and the environment. Thus, the objective of this research was to fabricate antibiofilms based biodegradable Poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate)/organoclay (PBAT/OC) bionanocomposites incorporating with different proportions of cumin essential oil (CEO) as a toxicity-free product without requiring ZnO, TiO2, Ag-NPs or other nanoparticles. The composition of CEO was characterized by GC-MS. PBAT/OC bionanocomposites with variable proportions of CEO were prepared by solvent casting approach. The synergistic effect of CEO on the morphology, UV-shielding, and antibacterial/antioxidant activities was studied. The results revealed that the dispersion of clay layers in the matrix was affected when the CEO content was increased. The incorporated natural CEO into PBAT/OC nanocomposite was enhanced the UV-shielding properties (i.e. 100% blocking for UV-B and nearly up 95% for UV-A), and antimicrobial/antioxidant activities, especially at high oil concentration. Whereas for mechanical properties, the findings showed inferior tensile and modulus values, because of plasticizing CEO effect. The data in this research provide very promising formulations for fabricating sustainable PBAT-based antimicrobial and UV-protecting films for perspective applications in light-sensitive packaging such as drugs, food products or in agriculture mulch films.