Nanocellulose-based polymeric nanozyme as bioinspired spray coating for fruit preservation

The growing concerns about microbial food safety and environmental contamination call for sustainable food active packaging materials and practices with high performance. This contribution proposed a biocatalytic spraying coating for fruit preservation using carboxymethyl cellulose nanofibers grafting enzyme-like metal-organic frameworks (CNF@Ce-MOF) with banana and mango as model fruits. The well-characterized biohybrid nanofibers were verified to simultaneously mimic good oxidase-like and apyrase-like activities, enabling effective enzyme-like sterilization against three typical foodborne pathogens, i.e. Escherichia coli O157: H7, Staphylococcus aureus, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, reaching killing rates as high as 90.46%. The biocidal center dot O-2(-) generation and adenosine triphosphate depletion were the possible mechanisms causing the nonspecific bacteria death. Such antibacterial performance, as well as additional protective properties of CNF@Ce-MOF, facilitated the quality preservation during the 12-day storage of bananas and mangos by spray coating with the biomimetic CNF@Ce-MOF. It is expected that this work walks out the first step of nanozyme toward active packaging engineering for the fields of food, agriculture, and biomedicine.

Automated summary

This study presents a biocatalytic spraying coating for fruit preservation, using banana and mango as model fruits. The biohybrid nanofibers in the coating showed excellent antibacterial performance and effectively killed foodborne pathogens, thereby improving the quality of the fruits.