Characterization and preservation effect of polyelectrolyte multilayer coating fabricated by carboxymethyl cellulose and chitosan.

Fresh-cut apples are more perishable than the intact ones because they may suffer more attacks from the outside. In this work, polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) edible coating was fabricated by carboxymethyl cellulose sodium (CMC) and chitosan (CS) through layer-by-layer (LBL) electrostatic deposition method. The coating was characterized and found that PEM coating was smooth, transparent, had a clear stratified structure and exhibited a linear deposition behavior. Moreover, PEM coating had self-healing ability and the self-healing efficiency reached to 87.4%. The PEM coating was applied on fresh-cut apples to evaluate its preservation effect. PEM coating was good at weight loss inhibition, firmness maintaining and anti-browning. These findings indicated that the PEM coating could be used in fresh-keeping field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]