Biodegradable Composite Films Based on Egg White Protein and Tea Polyphenols: Physicochemical, Structural and Antibacterial Properties

It’s an ongoing trend to design new kinds of food packaging materials with excellent properties which are environment friendly enough. The aim of this study was to prepare and characterize egg white protein (EWP)-based composite films with and without tea polyphenols (TPs), as well as comparing their physical properties, structural properties, decomposable properties and bacteriostasis. EWP-TP composite films were designed with glycerol as their plasticizer. Mechanical results indicated that both elongation at break values (EAB) and tensile strength (TS) were higher in the composite films compared to the EWP film without TP addition. The structural and morphological properties showed insignificant changeable tendency since the formation of cross-linking and intermolecular interactions between the components in the films at different extents. In addition, the composite films presented excellent antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus on chilled pork in the presence of TP. Therefore, our prepared films might be used as a fresh-keeping material on the application of meat preservation. The biodegradation evaluation demonstrated that the EWP-TP composite films possessed considerable degradation and had the potential capacities applying in the field of food packaging.