# Biochemical Modification of Poly-Vinyl-Alcohol-Based Bioplastics with Citrus By-Product to Increase Its Food Packaging Application

## TL;DR

This paper explores using citrus by-products to modify bioplastics, enhancing their properties for food packaging while promoting circular economy practices.

## Contribution

The novel use of citrus by-product fractions to functionalize PVA bioplastics, improving their antioxidant and mechanical properties for food packaging.

## Key findings

- Functionalized PVA films exhibit reduced transparency but enhanced antioxidant activity.
- Modified bioplastics show good mechanical properties suitable for food packaging.
- Tests confirm the effectiveness of the films in preserving the freshness of fruits like apples.

## Abstract

The necessity to produce new biodegradable polymeric materials, to overcome the economic model, based on the linear economy, and to apply the circular economy model is a global problem. As a result, components unutilized derived from industrial processes are becoming increasingly valuable and useful to create new materials. This work focuses on the production of bioplastics based on poly (vinyl) alcohol (PVA) that have been modified with flavonoid fraction, liquid fraction obtained after digestion with cellulase and pectinase, and the solid material remaining after enzyme treatment, obtained from Citrus bergamia by-product (the so-called “pastazzo”). This last one is an almost completely unutilized product, although it is a potential rich source of biological active compounds. Enzymatic and non-enzymatic green extraction protocol have been employed to separate the different fractions and to make it more suitable to functionalize the PVA, suppling new properties to the bioplastics in a dose-dependent manner. Morpho-functional analysis was conducted by SEM, XRD, colorimetry, UV–visible and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Regarding optical properties, the obtained results show that transparency of the film in terms of light transmittance (T%) for PVA alone is very high, but when functionalized it had a reduced T%. From the data obtained, the functionalized films acquire antioxidant activity, as well as good mechanical properties, making them good candidates for biodegradable packaging for preserving the shelf life of different fruits and vegetables as confirmed by the food fresh-keeping test performed on apple samples.