The integration of recognition elements with nanomaterials provides a synergystic strategy for sensing of bacteria.

Active packaging is an innovative strategy in preventing lipid oxidation. Different active substances with different mechanisms of action have been investigated for imparting antioxidant activity to active packaging systems, including free radical scavengers, metal chelators, ultraviolet (UV) absorbers, oxygen scavengers, and singlet oxygen quenchers. Antioxidant agents have been incorporated into active packaging systems in different forms, mainly including independent sachet packages, adhesive-bonded labels, physical adsorption/coating on packaging material surface, being incorporated into packaging polymer matrix, multilayer films, and covalent immobilization onto the food contact packaging surface. In this paper, we review recent advances in antioxidant active packaging with the highlight of the development and application of non-migratory active packaging systems. The potential use of emerging technologies in antioxidant active packaging is also emphasized. We further describe challenges and opportunities towards the commercial application of such antioxidant active packaging systems, with a focus on maintaining safety, quality and nutrition of packaged foods.

Active food packaging involves the packaging of foods with materials that provide an enhanced functionality, such as antimicrobial, antioxidant or biocatalytic functions. This can be achieved through the incorporation of active compounds into the matrix of the commonly used packaging materials, or by the application of coatings with the corresponding functionality through surface modification. The latter option offers the advantage of preserving the packaging materials’ bulk properties nearly intact. Herein, different coating technologies like embedding for controlled release, immobilization, layer-by-layer deposition, and photografting are explained and their potential application for active food packaging is explored and discussed.

Optical techniques have proven to be well suited for in situ biomolecular sensing because they enable high fidelity measurements in aqueous environments, are minimally affected by background solution pH or ionic strength, and facilitate label-free detection. Recently, there has been significant interest in developing new classes of optically resonant biosensors possessing very high quality-factors. This high quality-factor enables them to resolve the presence of very small amounts of bound mass and leads to very low limits of detection. A drawback of these devices is that the majority of the resonant electromagnetic energy is confined within the solid light-guiding structure thus limiting the degree to which it overlaps with the bound matter. This in turn lowers the ultimate device sensitivity, or the change in output signal in response to changes in bound mass. Here we present a novel optofluidic biosensor platform that incorporates a unique one-dimensional photonic crystal resonator array which enables significantly stronger light-matter interaction. We show here how this, coupled with the ability of planar photonic crystals to spatially localize the optical field to mode volumes on the order of a wavelength cubed, enables a limit of detection on the order of 63 ag total bound mass (estimated using a polyelectrolyte growth model) and a device sensitivity an order of magnitude better than similar devices. The multiplexing capabilities of our sensor are demonstrated by the individual and concurrent detection of interleukins 4, 6 and 8 using a sandwich assay.