Trends and challenges of biopolymer-based nanocomposites in food packaging.

The ultimate goal of new food packaging technologies, in addition to maintaining the quality and safety of food for the consumer, is to consider environmental concerns and reduce its impacts. In this regard, one of the solutions is to use eco-friendly biopolymers instead of conventional petroleum-based polymers. However, the challenges of using biopolymers in the food packaging industry should be carefully evaluated, and techniques to eliminate or minimize their disadvantages should be investigated. Many studies have been conducted to improve the properties of biopolymer-based packaging materials to produce a favorable product for the food industry. This article reviews the structure of biopolymer-based materials and discusses the trends and challenges of using these materials in food packaging technologies with the focus on nanotechnology and based on recent studies.

Multiyear life energy and life cycle assessment of orange production in Iran.

Increasing agricultural production requires the application of more chemical inputs during the growth of different crops. This study aims at assessing the energy indicators and environmental impacts during the initial 7-year growth of orange orchards. Through the life cycle assessment (LCA) technique, the hotspots in 11 environmental indicators of the orange orchard growth were determined for different years. The system boundaries were considered to be the orange orchard gates, and the functional units were 1 kg of orange and 1-h orange orchard. The energy input of nitrogen fertilizer, diesel, and human labor has the biggest share in the total energy inputs. The total average energy input and energy output (in 7 years) were calculated as 62,917.027 MJ/ha and 47,618.17 MJ/ha, respectively. The results showed that the energy indices (energy efficiency and net energy) were increasing from year first to seventh and also the share of renewable energy increased. According to the results, with respect to the highest share for production of 1 kg orange in different criteria, nitrogen fertilizer was the main contributor to abiotic depletion and human toxicity, orchard field emissions and nitrogen fertilizer had the highest shares in global warming and photochemical oxidation, fossil fuels and nitrogen fertilizer were the highest contributors to ozone layer depletion, whereas ecotoxicity was mainly affected by chemical fertilizers and orchard surface emissions. Finally, the main contributor for acidification and eutrophication was surface emissions. In the study of environmental impacts from the first to the seventh year, it should be noted that if the functional unit is considered mass based (1 kg orange), due to the unproductive of the trees in the first to third years (low fruit production), the environmental effects are high and then it decreases after the third year due to increasing the yield of the product. Generally, with consideration of the tree growth period, the useful data of energy and environmental impacts for production horticultural products can be provided so that we can avoid multiple interpretations of results associated to reporting annual energy and environmental impact variations.

Environmental footprint study of white rice production chain-case study: Northern of Iran.

Rice is globally counted as a highly important food. Among its production processes, paddy production, drying and whitening are energy-intensive that leave environmental impact. The study analyzes the environmental parameters (by SimaPro 8.1) for the growth of two rice paddy varieties (low-yield and high-yield) in three Northern provinces of Iran (Mazandaran, Guilan and Golestan) using two mechanized and traditional planting methods. The environmental impact of white rice production in milling plants and its drying using two dryers (modern and conventional) running on three different fuels (kerosene, diesel fuel and natural gas) was analyzed. Finally, the husking and whitening processes through three different systems (conventional, semi-modern and modern) were investigated. Results revealed that the highest environmental impact occurred when using the mechanized planting system to grow the low-yield variety in Mazandaran province (MC-LYV-MP). The lowest impact was observed in Guilan province when growing the high-yield variety using the traditional practice (TC-HYV-GiP). During the drying process, the largest adverse environmental effects (mechanized harvesting, high-yield variety, and conventional drying) were found to be 1.92 times higher than their lowest level (traditional harvesting, low yield variety and conventional dryer) using kerosene and 4.73, and 5.59 times higher than their lowest level (traditional harvesting, low yield variety, and modern drying) using diesel fuel, and natural gas, respectively. The processing (husking and whitening) results also suggested that the use of modern systems exacerbated the environmental impact by 1.42 (low-yield variety) and 1.53 (high-yield variety) compared to the traditional paddy processing methods.