Novel Humidity-Responsive Nanofiber Film Based on Emulsion Electrospinning for Fruit Preservation

The stimuli-responsive active packaging materials have attracted large attention while using a simple method to prepare stimuli-responsive active packaging materials remains a challenge. Herein, humidity-responsive core-shell poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL)-citral nanofiber film was successfully prepared via simple emulsion electrospinning. The active substance citral was encapsulated in the core of the PVA/PCL-citral nanofiber. The controllable release of citral from the core-shell PVA/PCL-citral nanofiber film was achieved by changing the microenvironment's humidity due to the PVA shell's swelling in high humidity. The PVA/PCL-citral nanofiber film exhibited excellent antioxidant capacity with an ABTS free radical scavenging percentage of 88%. The nanofiber film also inhibited Escherichia coli (ATCC 29213) and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25922) with antimicrobial rates of 99.99% and 99.98%, respectively. A study on the biocompatible nanofiber film as packaging material was conducted on apricots, and the shelf life of apricots was extended to 9 days. Therefore, the humidity-responsive PVA/PCL-citral nanofiber film fabricated in this study has good application potential in antioxidant and antimicrobial packaging.