Development of biodegradable films reinforced with silver functionalized cow milk carbon dots for active food packaging applications

Synthetic food packaging films exhibit poor biodegradability and their use has resulted in significant environmental issues. The objective of this work was to develop organic, biopolymer-based antibacterial packaging films as an alternative to synthetic packaging films. In this study, agar was chosen as a biopolymer matrix, carbon dots (CDs) derived from cow milk served as an antibacterial source and Ag nanoparticles were added to enhance the antibacterial activity. The prepared films were characterized by SEM, TEM, UTM, XRD, TGA-DTA, FT-IR, and water contact angle measurements. The prepared films showed good antibacterial activity against E.coli and S. aureus and a tensile strength value of about 41.85 MPa. In addition to these, the prepared films showed good biodegradable properties of about 86 % degradation in 60 days and good UV barrier properties. Finally, the films were tested for real-time application on sliced tomatoes, which also showed good results even after 4 days at room temperature.