Background

Essential oils (EOs) have received much attention owing to their remarkable biological activities and health promoting benefits, but they are easily oxidized and chemically unstable as well as having a low resistance to environmental stresses like light, oxygen, and temperature. Furthermore, their physiochemical properties may limit their application as active compounds in food and pharmaceuticals due to some restrictions such as less solubility, poor bioavailability and quick release.

Scope and approach

Nanoencapsulation techniques can be used for entrapment of essential oils to uphold their original characteristics during processing and to improve their physiochemical properties as well as to enhance their health promoting effects. The prominence of nanocarriers in the arena of nanotechnology cannot be denied. The present article focuses specifically on loading of EOs into biopolymeric nanocarriers, their functionalities and innovative developments in preparation approaches. Additionally, the present state of the art loading of numerous essential oils via biopolymeric nanocarriers have been enclosed and tabulated well.

Key findings and conclusions

This review highlights the application of EO-loaded biopolymeric nanocarriers into active food packaging being promising antimicrobial and antioxidant agents which have shown practical results in order to retard the oxidation phenomenon as well as microbial growth in different food products. Further studies are needed for exploring the application of EO-loaded biopolymeric nanocarriers into active food packaging to assure their commercial exploitation.

中文翻译：

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通过掺入含有精油的生物聚合物纳米载体来开发活性食品包装

背景

精油（EOs）由于其卓越的生物活性和促进健康的特性而受到了广泛的关注，但是它们容易被氧化和化学不稳定，并且对诸如光，氧和温度的环境压力具有较低的抵抗力。此外，由于一些限制，例如溶解度低，生物利用度差和释放快，它们的物理化学性质可能会限制其在食品和药品中作为活性化合物的应用。

范围和方法

纳米囊化技术可用于捕获香精油，以在加工过程中保持其原始特性并改善其理化性质，并增强其促进健康的作用。不能否认纳米载体在纳米技术领域的突出地位。本文特别关注于将EOs负载到生物聚合物纳米载体中，它们的功能以及制备方法的创新发展。另外，通过生物聚合纳米载体装载多种香精油的现有技术水平已经被封闭并制成表格。

主要发现和结论

这篇综述着重介绍了负载EO的生物聚合物纳米载体在活性食品包装中的应用，它们是有前途的抗菌剂和抗氧化剂，它们已经显示出实际结果，可以抑制不同食品中的氧化现象以及微生物的生长。探索载有EO的生物聚合物纳米载体在活性食品包装中的应用需要进一步的研究，以确保其商业用途。