Advanced nano-enhanced bioplastics for smart food packaging: Enhancing functionalities and sustainability

Plastics have dominated food packaging due to their cost-effectiveness, lightweight characteristics, and durability. However, their permeability to gases and moisture has adversely affected food quality and worsened climate change through emissions and waste. Bioplastics have emerged as sustainable alternatives, offering biodegradability and biobased origins, but have initially grappled with higher production costs and suboptimal mechanical and barrier properties compared to conventional plastics. This review evaluates the limitations of biopolymer-based bioplastics, including inadequate mechanical strength and high hydrophilicity leading to water absorption, have necessitated functional additives. And explores recent innovations reveal that embedding nanoparticle—such as zinc oxide (ZnO), silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), titanium dioxide (TiO₂), copper nanoparticles (CuNPs), reduced graphene oxide (RGO), and nanoclays—into bioplastics has yielded materials with improved tensile strength, Young's modulus, thermal stability, and reduced water vapor permeability. The integration of nanomaterials into bioplastics has augmented the physicomechanical properties and conferred advanced antimicrobial efficacy, UV photoprotection, and tunable biodegradability. For instance, ZnO and TiO₂ nanoparticles have significantly improved mechanical robustness and barrier performance, while RGO and CuNPs have exhibited potent antimicrobial activity. These nano-enhanced bioplastics has addressed deficiencies in conventional bioplastics and expanded their use in food packaging and biomedicine. This review highlights progress in biopolymer-based bioplastics through nanoparticle incorporation, emphasizing their enhanced attributes and promoting sustainable solutions.