Abstract:

Food packaging plays an important role in guaranteeing food safety and maintaining food quality. As such
antimicrobial food packaging has gained tremendous attention in recent years. Nano zinc oxide is a common inorganic
antibacterial material, and has obvious antimicrobial effect on bacteria like Escherichia coil and Staphylococcus
aureus as well as fungi. In this paper, we provide a comparison of the currently available types of antimicrobial food
packaging and a systematic overview of the antimicrobial mechanisms of nano zinc oxide and its applications in
antimicrobial food packaging. At the same time, the disadvantages and future prospects of nano zinc oxide packaging
technology are also analyzed.

Key words: nano zinc oxide, antimicrobial activity, food packaging, applications