title: Biocidal packaging for pharmaceuticals, foods, and other perishables.
abstract: Many consumer goods must be protected from bacterial and fungal colonization to ensure their integrity and safety. By making these items' packaging biocidal, the interior environment can be preserved from microbial spoilage without altering the products themselves. Herein we briefly review this concept, referred to as active packaging, and discuss existing methods for constructing active packaging systems. They are based on either packaging materials that release biocides or those that are themselves intrinsically biocidal (or biostatic), with numerous variations within each category.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. alyssa1@mit.edu
authors.forename: Alyssa M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Alexander M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Klibanov
mesh_terms: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents / Q000737:chemistry*; D004349:Drug Packaging / Q000379:methods*; D018857:Food Packaging / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000890:Anti-Infective Agents