Overview of active polymer-based packaging technologies for food applications

There has been a growing interest and effort over the last few years in the development of novel food packaging concepts, which can play a proactive role regarding product preservation, shelf-life extension, and even improvement. Several strategies have been devised to exert a positive action over the packaged foodstuff, including retention of desirable molecules (i.e., aldehydes, oxygen) and release of substances (i.e., carbon dioxide, aromas). These new developments have been generally termed active packaging technologies. However, many of these emerging active packaging technologies are finding in the versatility and special properties of plastic materials an efficient vehicle to exploit and enhance their commercial interest. This overview examines the most recent developments and technologies designed to include the active principle within the plastic packaging materials and generally termed active plastics technologies. Due to the novelty of most of these active packaging developments, the scope of this article has mainly been focused on peer-reviewed literature as this offers, in principle, a more objective description of these new technologies.