Non-Metallic and Eco-Friendly Oxygen Scavengers: Emerging Strategies to Extend the Shelf Life of Oxidizable Foods

Information from the abstract

Oxygen-sensitive foods deteriorate through lipid oxidation, vitamin degradation, and aerobic microbial growth, necessitating effective oxygen scavenging systems. While metal-based scavengers dominate the market with high efficiency, they face challenges including regulatory restrictions, uncontrolled activation, metal detector interference, and contamination risks from damaged sachets. These limitations, coupled with eco-friendly and clean-label demands, drive industry interest in non-metallic alternatives. This review comprehensively examines recent developments in non-metallic oxygen scavenging materials, focusing on their fundamental mechanisms, scavenging efficiency, incorporation methods, and practical applicability for extending the shelf life of oxygen-sensitive foods. The analysis evaluates four primary categories: natural antioxidant materials, biological agents, organic reducing agents, and organic polymer systems with reactive functional groups. Performance characteristics, activation triggers, commercial viability, and real-world food application results are critically assessed. Recent studies on non-metal-based GRAS-listed materials demonstrate notable scavenging capacities: 67.2-200 mL O₂/g for organic polymer systems with controlled UV activation, though one outlier value reported under optimized closed-system conditions remains outside this range and requires independent validation, 10-120 mL O₂/g for antioxidant materials, 66 mL O₂/g for biological materials, and 15.56-120 mL O₂/g for organic reducing agents, all showing excellent consumer acceptance. Application trials demonstrate 2-fold shelf-life extensions across bakery, dairy, meat, and oil-based products. Activation via moisture, UV light, and temperature enables controlled oxygen removal. Key findings indicate gallic acid and enzymatic systems show the most promising results, achieving 2-3 fold shelf-life extensions; however, no single non-metallic system universally matches iron-based performance, and system selection must be application-specific based on food matrix, activation feasibility, and economic constraints.

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Related topics: Nanocomposite Films for Food Packaging · Polymer Science and PVC · Cassava research and cyanide