Cinnamon oil incorporated polymeric films for active food packaging

Without the use of solvent, alginic acid (ALG) and cinnamon essential oil (CEO) were incorporated into poly epsilon-caprolactone (PCL), via mechanical blending, to obtain a biodegradable composite material with antifungal properties. ALG and CEO were well-dispersed within the PCL matrix. While the incorporation of ALG into PCL led to an increase in the Young's Modulus of the film, the subsequent addition of CEO led to a decrease in it. Despite the incorporation of ALG and CEO into PCL resulted in a reduction in the ultimate tensile strength and percent elongation at break, it possessed better mechanical properties than the commonly used packaging material, Lowdensity polyethylene (LDPE). Lastly, packaging of bread samples using the PCL/ALG/CEO film achieved the complete inhibition of fungal growth in bread as compared to LDPE. Therefore, the PCL/ALG/CEO film would bear great potential as a novel green food packaging material.