VALORIZATION OF TOMATO PROCESSING RESIDUES THROUGH THE PRODUCTION OF ACTIVE BIO-COMPOSITES FOR PACKAGING APPLICATIONS

The development of new bio-materials from largely available and cheap residual biomass resources, such as agro-industrial residues, to produce green/edible packaging manufactures is one of the major challenges from scientific and technological viewpoint (1). Mechanical milling was selected in this work for the preparation of novel green/edible composites consisting of tomato peels (TPs) as a bio-based matrix and carvacrol encapsulated into HNTs as a natural antibacterial agent (filler loading: 2.5, 5, 10, 20 wt%) (2). The structural organization and the main physical properties of the obtained active bio-based composites were investigated; in particular, thermal and mechanical properties along with the films' interaction with water vapor were assessed and then correlated to the filler loading. The sustained release of carvacrol was also analyzed.