The Use of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Eva to Obtain Food Packing Films

The increasing demand for new packages with increased shelf life properties has stimulated the increase of research in the active packaging sector. The use of antimicrobial agents requires an in-depth study of their properties to avoid loss of efficiency of the polymer processing. In this context, the objective of this work was to evaluate the preparation of an 18% ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) nanocomposite and zinc oxide (ZnO) as microbicidal nanoparticle, prepared in a monosulfon extruder. The nanoparticle was modified with octadecylamine and EVA 18 nanocomposite films were prepared and compared to the systems containing modified nanoparticle. These new materials were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), Time Domain Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) to investigate the effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles on thermal properties, EVA crystallinity and antimicrobial effect. The TGA showed a tendency of increase of the thermal stability in different proportions of ZnO. DSC results did not show significant changes in thermal parameters. The XRD analysis showed an increase in the degree of crystallinity of the nanocomposites in relation to the EVA matrix and change in the crystallinity with the increase of ZnO percentages. DMA analysis indicates change in structural organization through the variation of storage modulus, loss, and tan delta. Time domain NMR data corroborate with XRD data through the change in molecular mobility.