A preliminary study on modified chitosan-curcuminoids as material active food packaging with antioxidant and antibacterial activities

The compound of inorganic nanoparticles is commonly mixed with polymeric materials for food packaging that has antibacterial function. However, the inorganic nanoparticles are toxic to human and the polymeric materials used are not easily biodegraded. The curcuminoids compound from turmeric extract has antioxidant and antibacterial activity which can be a candidate as polymer combination. The polymer used is chitosan which isolated from crab shell with the yield of 4.54 %. In this study, the modified chitosan-curcuminoids was synthesized by in-situ loading method and moulded into a film. Interaction between chitosan and curcuminoids is hydrogen interaction which determined using FTIR. Then, antioxidant activity was tested using radical DPPH scavenger. Antioxidant test results showed that modified chitosan with 20, 40, 60 80 and 100 ppm of ascorbic acid have inhibition levels of 15.49, 16.20, 16.90, 23.94 and 27.47 %, respectively. Modified chitosan with 25 ppm of curcuminoids have a comparable antioxidant activity to chitosan modified ascorbic acid 80 ppm with 24.65 % inhibition. Meanwhile, in the antibacterial test, chitosan modified with curcuminoids showed antibacterial activity toward E. coli and S. aureus bacteria with inhibition zone of 9 and 6 mm, respectively.