Super absorbent resilience antibacterial aerogel with curcumin for fresh pork preservation

In order to better showcase the freshness of fresh meat, merchants usually place absorbent pads under tray packaging for preservation. However, the current absorbent pads can only absorb a small amount of blood water and cannot effectively inhibit the growth and reproduction of microorganisms in tray packaging. Herein, a super absorbent aerogel pad for preserving fresh meat was prepared through the Schiff base reaction. Benefiting from the superhydrophilicity and porous structure of aerogels, the prepared G3D1BC0.5 (Gelatin: Dialdehyde starch = 3:1, Bacterial cellulose: 0.5%) aerogel not only possessed excellent adsorption performance but also rapidly regain their shape under 70% compression strain. The G3D1BC0.5 aerogel incorporating curcumin (Cur) showed the good antibacterial ability where the survival rate of Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium significantly decreased to lower than 45% with the increase of Cur content (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the prepared aerogels had the excellent preservation effect on fresh meat during storage. The G3D1BC0.5-Cur0.7 aerogels can extend the shelf-life of fresh pork to 12 days by inhibiting microbial growth, protein oxidation, and lipid oxidation. Therefore, the prepared aerogel in the present study had great potential for preservation of fresh pork.