Shelf life extension of aquatic products by applying nanotechnology: a review

Abstract

Aquatic products are extremely perishable due to their biological composition. Conventional preservation methods such as freezing, chemical treatments, packaging, and so forth are unable to inhibit enzymatic and microbiological spoilage efficiently and/or energy intensive and/or potentially toxic. However, the demand of consumers for aquatic products with long shelf life and high quality has urged the food industries to pursuit highly effective preservation methods for shelf life extension of aquatic products. Nanotechnology-related shelf life prolongation process possess the ability to overcome the drawbacks of conventional preservation technologies due to its unique properties. In this article, the aquatic products spoilage mechanisms, recent application of nanotechnology-related preservation techniques for aquatic products as well as the risk and regulation of nanomaterials have been reviewed. It has been shown that nanotechnology-related preservation techniques can effectively extend the shelf life without impairing the quality of aquatic products. However, the safety of nanotechnology is still remained controversial, therefore, the application of nanotechnology should be considered cautiously.

Keywords:

• Aquatic products
• nanotechnology
• regulation
• risk
• shelf life
• spoilage

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledged the support of National Key R&D Program of China (Contract No. 2017YFD0400501). The research was also supported by the 111 Project (BP0719028), Jiangsu Province (China) “Collaborative Innovation Center for Food Safety and Quality Control” Industry Development Program, Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory Project of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (No. FMZ202003).