Assessment of Elenolic Acid Incorporation on Physical Properties of Chitosan Films to be Used as Active Packaging Material

Abstract

There is growing interest in biodegradable active packaging materials to extend shelf lives of food by retarding deteriorative reactions. The objective of this study was to fabricate active packaging films made from elenolic acid and chitosan. Elenolic acid is one of the phenolic compounds of olive leaves. Different amount of elenolic acid (%2.5 and %5 w/v) was incorporated into chitosan films (%1 and 2% w/v). The physical properties (density, moisture content, solubility, water vapor permeability, opacity, and color), total phenolic content and antioxidant activity were investigated. While elenolic acid addition did not affect the moisture content of chitosan films and the density, opacity, a* and b* values increased significantly (p ≤ 0.05). Elenolic acid incorporation reduced the water vapor permeability of chitosan films by 25%. Correlated to total phenolic content of the films, antioxidant activity of films reached up to % 85. Elenolic acid added chitosan films exhibited good water vapor barrier properties, opacity and antioxidant activity indicating that they could be developed as biodegradable active food packaging material for the food industry.