Application of carbon dots in food preservation: a critical review for packaging enhancers and food preservatives

Abstract

Carbon dots (CDs) have two unique advantages: one is ease of synthesis at low price, the other is desirable physical and chemical properties, such as ultra-small size, abundant surface functional groups, nontoxic/low-toxicity, good biocompatibility, excellent antibacterial and antioxidant activities etc. These advantages provide opportunities for the development of new food packaging enhancers and food preservatives. This paper systematically reviews the studies of CDs used to strengthen the physical properties of food packaging, including strengthen mechanical strength, ultraviolet (UV) barrier properties and water barrier properties. It also reviews the researches of CDs used to fabricate active packaging with antioxidant and/or antibacterial properties and intelligent packaging with the capacity of sensing the freshness of food. In addition, it analyzes the antioxidant and antibacterial properties of CDs as preservatives, and discusses the effect of CDs applied as coating agents and nano-level food additives for extension the shelf life of food samples. It also provides a brief review on the security and the release behavior of CDs.

Highlights

• Collect and analyze the effect of CDs on enhancing the physical properties of protective food packaging.

• Discuss the active of CDs and their application in active intelligent packaging.

• Analyze the application of CDs as coating agent and nano-level food additives.

• Discuss the security of CDs, including toxicity and the release behavior.

Keywords:

• Carbon dots
• food preservation
• active intelligent packaging
• security
• antioxidant

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge the financial supports from the China Key Research Programs (Contract No. 2017YFD0400501), National First-Class Discipline Program of Food Science and Technology (No. JUFSTR20180205), Yangzhou City Agricultural Key R&D Program (No.YZ2019034), the 111 Project (BP0719028), Research Innovation Project for Postgraduates in Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX20_1846), Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Food Manufacturing Equipment and Technology Project (No.FMZ202003), all of which enabled us to carry out this study.