Covalent Organic Frameworks in Smart Food Packaging: Advances, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Abstract

Food preservation challenges have positioned packaging as a rapidly evolving, innovation-driven field, with smart packaging offering transformative solutions. Among advanced materials, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have attracted growing attention due to their permanent porosity, structural tunability, high surface area, and chemical stability. These features allow COFs to address critical needs in food packaging, including active barrier protection, antimicrobial action, and smart sensing of food freshness and spoilage. This review examines recent progress in applying COFs to food packaging, with particular focus on their ability to prolong shelf life and enable smart functionalities for real-time monitoring of food quality. Safety aspects, biocompatibility, recyclability, and biodegradability are also critically evaluated, as these remain key considerations for regulatory approval and industrial translation. Although current studies report minimal cytotoxicity, long-term toxicological assessments are still limited, underscoring the need for more comprehensive investigations. Looking forward, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) provide powerful tools for accelerating COF discovery and optimization. Their integration into COF design could streamline synthesis, improve scalability, and guide application-specific material development. COFs represent a promising new class of materials poised to advance the next generation of sustainable, functional, and smart food-packaging systems.