The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the two highest waste streams contributing to municipal solid waste are food (22%) and plastic (19.2%) respectively, and it has been reported that 60% of all plastic ever produced is currently accumulating in landfills or in the environment. There is thus an urgent need for innovations to reduce converging sustainability concerns around food and plastic packaging waste. Active food packaging offers a potentially <i>clean label </i>approach to reducing food waste while addressing on-going demands for reducing use of food additives, yet there remains a need for research on sustainable active packaging materials. In this work we will describe advances in research on immobilized active packaging technologies using a bioderived, biodegradable material. Reactive extrusion of polylactic acid with antioxidant active ligands represents an industrially translatable process to produce immobilized active packaging (i.e, that in which the active ligand is unlikely to migrate to the food or beverage) using sustainable materials. The antioxidant polylactic acid material presented Trolox equivalency of 0.36 to 0.89 nmol/cm<sup>2</sup>, delaying ascorbic acid degradation by &gt;50%. Interfacial pKa determination revealed optimal performance of the material in systems of pH value 6.7 and greater. The resulting active packaging materials can support addressing converging needs of addressing consumer demands of additive removal and reduction of food and plastic packaging waste.

Advances in sustainable active packaging materials

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.