Development of Bacterial Cellulose-Based Films Incorporated with Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate for Active Food Packaging

Recently, renewable biopolymers have gained growing attention as an alternative to petroleum-based materials in the packaging industry due to their eco-friendliness, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. This study introduces an innovative method for producing active films, which uses natural bacterial cellulose (BC) films as the matrix and incorporates (−)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) through an immersion process. The incorporation of EGCG improves the barrier performance against oxygen and UV of the BC-based active films while preserving their tensile strength without compromising their opacity. More importantly, the active films exhibited significant antibacterial effects, with the efficacy increasing with the concentration of EGCG. Specifically, the diameters of the inhibition zones enlarged progressively against both S. aureus (from 13.88 to 16.25 mm, p < 0.05) and E. coli (from 12.38 to 14.13 mm). Correspondingly, the antibacterial rate of the active films increased from 61.4% to 80.61% (p < 0.05) against S. aureus and from 57.38% to 60.38% against E. coli. Additionally, the BC-based active films developed in this work exhibit excellent biodegradability, being capable of achieving complete biodegradation within 21 days of soil burial. This breakthrough exhibits considerable potential of BC-based active films as eco-friendly packaging materials, showing exceptional promise for sustainable active food packaging applications.