Biodegradable membranes loaded with curcumin to be used as engineered independent devices in active packaging

Curcumin is an excellent candidate to be used in the realization of controlled release devices for food packaging. Various techniques have been tested to produce these devices but, among them, SC-CO2 assisted phase inversion has been particularly successful. Biodegradable cellulose acetate curcumin nanostructured membranes have been developed in this study: we tested different process conditions (12-24% w/w polymer concentration, 10-20% w/w curcumin, 35-55 degrees C, 150-250 bar), obtaining an uniform distribution at nanometric level of curcumin and producing, in a fast process, practically solvent free membranes (5 ppm acetone residue). Moreover, it has been possible to modulate membrane pore size obtaining a very long continued release of curcumin that maintained more than 90% of native antioxidant activity.