RELEASE OF α-TOCOPHEROL FROM CHITOSAN/PECTIN POLYELECTROLYTE COMPLEX FILM INTO FATTY FOOD SIMULANT FOR THE DESIGN OF ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVE FOOD PACKAGE

Lipid oxidation is one of the leading causes of the decline in food product quality. However, it might be overcome with active antioxidant packaging technologies, which is based on the incorporation of antioxidants to the packaging material. In this study, the polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) from chitosan (CS) and pectin (PE) was used as a packaging material and a-tocopherol (a-TOH) was used as an antioxidant to develop an antioxidant active packaging with the addition of Tween-80 to facilitate the incorporation of hydrophobic a-TOH into hydrophilic PEC CS/PE solution. This research showed that the composition of PEC chitosan/pectin, the concentration of Tween-80, and the concentration of a-TOH affected the releasing profile of a-TOH. The hydrophilicity of film increased with the increase of PE amount in PEC and the concentration of Tween–80. This improvement in the hydrophilicity also led to an increase in the release of a-TOH. The highest accumulative release of a-TOH was achieved when using a film with the highest initial concentration of incorporated a-TOH (C3), which was up to 98.49%. The result of the performed DPPH assay showed that the complex films exhibited high antioxidant activity up to 90.60%. The releasing profile of all films exhibited an initial burst effect followed by sustain release over 10 d. Therefore, this film can be promising as an antioxidant active package.