Bio-Nanocomposite Coatings: A Potential Strategy to Improve the Overall Performance of Food Packaging Materials—2nd Edition

A special issue of Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412). This special issue belongs to the section "Coatings for Food Technology and System".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 26 September 2026

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
Interests: food packaging; biopolymers; bionanocomposites; functional polymers; coating technology; nanocomposite coatings; nanostructured coatings
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Food, Environmental and Nutritional Sciences, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
Interests: food packaging; shelf-life of food products; food waste valorization; non-thermal technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Multiple efforts have recently been made at both academic and industrial levels to replace current food packaging systems, mostly relying on environmentally impacting materials, with high-performing and more sustainable solutions. In this scenario, the involvement of natural biopolymers such as proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids as coating agents to yield alternative packaging configurations has become a trendy and fascinating research topic. Such biopolymers, upon the tuned loading of targeted compounds, could generate nanocomposites either possessing active behavior (e.g., antimicrobial, antioxidant power) or boosting thermal/mechanical/barrier properties of the employed substrate (e.g., plastic, bioplastic, paper/paperboard). Hence, packaged food items that are of high quality and that have an increased shelf-life could be obtained in comparison to their uncoated counterparts (i.e., the bare substrate).

With the current Special Issue, we would like to catch the attention of food/material scientists, engineers, and technologists, and invite them to contribute via original research papers, review articles, and short communications. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Design/development/validation of bio-nanocoated packaging systems;
  • Evaluation of thermal/mechanical/barrier/optical properties of coated systems;
  • Migration from packaging materials;
  • Surface behavior of coated systems;
  • Interaction between the coating and employed substrate;
  • Shelf-life tests;
  • Mathematical modeling/simulation of phenomena taking place during food preservation;
  • Scaling up of equipment related to coating processes;
  • Economical/life-cycle assessment analyses.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Stefano Farris
Dr. Daniele Carullo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Coatings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bio-nanocomposites
  • coatings
  • food packaging materials
  • functional properties
  • surface properties
  • sustainability

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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