ORIGINAL PAPER Active Banana Flour Nanocomposite Films Incorporated with Garlic Essential Oil as Multifunctional Packaging Material for Food Application Aungkana Orsuwan 1 & Rungsinee Sothornvit 1,2 Received: 20 November 2017 /Accepted: 5 March 2018 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Active plasticized banana flour nanocomposite film (APBNF) incorporated with a different garlic essential oil (GO) content was formed using a solution casting to determine the film properties prior to the investigation of its effectiveness to preserve the roasted peanut quality. The GO concentration was positively correlated with the ultraviolet (UV) light barrier property and antioxidant activity indicating the ability to protect the packed food product from lipid oxidation. Additionally, incorporation of 1 mg/mL GO into APBNF showed the highest antioxidant activity and completely inhibited the growth of Aspergillus flavus. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the functional group interactions between the film matrix and GO which act as an antioxidant and antimicrobial agent. Thus, APBNF incorporated with 1 mg/mL GO as an active packaging to preserve the quality of roasted peanuts was investigated comparing with a commercial plastic packaging of polyethylene terephthalate/low- density polyethylene (PET/LDPE; PET). The shelf life estimation of roasted peanuts packed in both packaging materials (APBNF and PET) based on the peroxide value (PV) was similar at high storage temperature (45 °C). Therefore, APBNF shows a multifunctional primary food packaging to maintain the quality of roasted peanuts or oily food products. Keywords Banana flour . Garlic essential oil . Nanocomposite . Antioxidant . Active packaging . Shelf life estimation Introduction Active food packaging is required with desirable functional properties including antioxidant and antimicrobial properties (Du et al. 2009; Abdollahi et al. 2012; Manso et al. 2013; Kanmani and Rhim 2014). Generally, synthetic antioxidants (such as butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytol- uene) have been applied to protect oily food from lipid oxida- tion. However, synthetic antioxidants may cause carcinogen- esis (Haq and Hasnain 2012). Therefore, spices are good can- didates as active agents to provide antioxidant and antimicro- bial activities, especially garlic (Allium sativum L.). Garlic es- sential oil (GO) exhibited a powerful antioxidant activity in fish protein films (Teixeira et al. 2014) and was an effective fungi- cide against Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, and Aspergillus fumigatus at concentrations between 35 and 104 ppm (Yin and Tsao 1999). This might be due to the di-2- propenyldisulfide and di-2-propenyltetrasulfide in garlic essen- tial oil which were responsible for antifungal and antioxidant activity (Lawrence and Lawrence 2011). Therefore, it is neces- sary to investigate the effectiveness of the active food packag- ing on the quality of roasted peanuts during storage. Moreover, if the garlic flavor from the active packaging diffuses to the roasted peanuts, it will enhance the flavor of roasted peanuts as a condiment without addition of food additive. The roasted peanuts are important snacks which are widely consumed. Moreover, roasted peanuts can be used as a part of ingredients in Thai recipe. However, a high amount of lipid content (44–56%) in roasted peanut rapidly initiates lipid oxi- dation which is an undesirable attribute for consumers (Wang et al. 2017). Furthermore, peanuts are one of the most * Rungsinee Sothornvit fengrns@ku.ac.th 1 Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at Kamphaengsaen, Kasetsart University, Kamphaengsaen Campus, Nakhonpathom 73140, Thailand 2 Center of Advanced Studies in Industrial Technology, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand Food and Bioprocess Technology https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-018-2089-2