Chitosan Nanoparticles for Generating Novel Systems for Better Applications: A Review

Copyright: © 2015 Radhakrishnan Y, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The environmental sustainability and use of environmentally acceptable biomaterials are major areas of scientific and industrial research. In recent times, identification and application of suitable biopolymers instead of petroleum derived conventional polymers are gaining more attention. Chitosan and chitosan derived nanoparticles and nanocomposites are very promising due to their versatile properties and have found applications in various areas such as biomedical, foods, food packaging and personal care. Many studies suggest that chitosan nanoparticles and their derivatives are one of the best barrier and film coating materials for preserving the quality of foods and for delivering skin care products, mainly due to their biodegradability and anti-microbial properties. The present review gives insight on the progress made in the application of chitosan nanoparticles specifically in foods and food packaging, personal care products and in biomedical industry. Future studies shall address establishment of industrial scale up of chitosan nanoparticles, safety and quality aspects of these chitosan derived products for human use