Development of electrosprayed assisted shellac-MOF particle coated paper for food packaging and its environmental impacts

Smart packaging exhibiting long-term food freshness without harming the environment is a highly demanded product. Shellac is a promising biopolymer which is biodegradable and specifically introduces high water barrier properties. We demonstrate shellac: ZIF-67 (zeolitic imidazolate framework-67) coated paper using electrospraying, a simple method for coating commercial paper with microparticles that are 1.8 ± 0.03 μm in size and spread out evenly on the surface of the paper. The particles formed a defect-free coating after four coats of electrospraying and heating simultaneously. 150 min 4× shellac (20 % wt): ZIF 67 (1 %w/w) was optimised conditions for coating paper (ShZ_150x4_P) used for seafood packaging. Coated paper significantly improves water vapor transmittance rates for moisture (WVTR 91.7 %) and water (COBB 88.43 %) with a 27.2 % change in energy ΔE value. Soil burrier degradation confirmed the further sustainability of the packaging films, achieving 18.16 % weight loss and 92.8 % germination of cherry tomatoes within a 13-day time interval.