Enhancing shelflife of plum fruit by chitosan-based nanoemulsion coating incorporated with ginger essential oil

Abstract

• Chitosan nanoemulsions with varying GEO concentrations were prepared • Nanoemulsions showed stability with zeta potential values of -25 to -33 mV • Coated plums had higher firmness, phenolic content, vitamin C, and acceptability • Chitosan-GEO nanoemulsion coating preserved quality of plums for 35 days The objective of the study was to assess the effectiveness of chitosan (CH) nanoemulsion coatings infused with ginger essential oil (GEO) on the qualitative characteristics of Prunus domestica, “plum fruit” for a storage period of 35 days at 4°C with 85-90% relative humidity. The particle size of the chitosan nanoemulsions ranged from 265.80±6.52 to 370.03±8.23 nm, and zeta potential varied from -25±0.22 to -33±0.20 mV, depicting enhanced stability. The application of chitosan nanoemulsion coating had notable influence on maintaining the firmness of the fruits, retarding weight loss, decay rate, and color change as compared to uncoated fruit. After storage of 35 days, samples treated with chitosan-0.75% ginger essential oil showed significantly higher phenolic content (147.13 mg/100g), antioxidant activity (48.42%), titratable acidity (0.64%) and vitamin C (9.79 mg/100g) compared to both control and other treated samples. Thus chitosan-ginger essential oil coating can be an effective method to prolong the storage period of plum upto 35 days.