A consortium of 10 organizations, including six industrial partners manufacturing fibrillated cellulose, has partnered with academic, governmental, and commercial labs to ensure the safe use of fibrillated cellulose in food. Īlthough fibrillated cellulose is expected to be as safe as conventional cellulose for food uses, efforts are underway to demonstrate the safety and ensure safe and responsible commercialization. In food packaging, fibrillated cellulose is being developed as a coating, barrier, and additive in both paper- and plastic-based products. As a food coating, fibrillated cellulose can protect, produce during growth, and extend the shelf life. The unique properties of fibrillated cellulose enable it to be used as a food additive, food coating, and in food-contact packaging materials. This morphology gives fibrillated cellulose high tensile strength and enables high capacity thermal and mechanical applications. Fibrillated cellulose has a fibrillar structure, consisting of an entangled network of fibers and fibrils of varying lengths and widths.
Several cellulosic materials have been used in food for over a century and are classified as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the US Food and Drug Administration.įibrillated cellulose is produced by mechanically processing cellulose fibers to release the structural building block: individual cellulose fibrils. The role of cellulose in the food industry is ubiquitous, most widely used as an anti-caking agent. Each of these cellulose derivatives has numerous commercial applications. Purified cellulose fibers are usually obtained from wood pulp and serve as a base material to create a variety of different morphological forms and functional derivatives. Other natural sources of cellulose include invertebrates, algae, bacteria, and fungi. The results demonstrate the physical, chemical, and biological similarities of these materials and provide substantive evidence to support their grouping and ability to read-across data as part of a food safety demonstration.įibrillated cellulose, read-across, intestinal model, in vitro toxicology, physicochemical characterization, simulated digestion IntroductionĬellulose is the most abundant natural polymer on earth, which widely found in plants where it provides support and structure to cell walls. A toxicological investigation with an advanced intestinal co-culture model found that exposure to each of the fibrillated and conventional forms of cellulose, in either the pristine or digested form at 0.4% by weight, showed no adverse toxicological effects including cytotoxicity, barrier integrity, oxidative stress, or inflammation.
Simulated gastrointestinal and lysosomal digestions demonstrate that these physical and chemical similarities remain following exposure to conditions that mimic the gastrointestinal tract or intracellular lysosomes.
The physical and chemical characterization of fibrillated celluloses demonstrate that these materials are similar physically and chemically, which composed of the same fundamental molecular structure and exhibit similar morphology, size, size distribution, surface charge, and low levels of impurities. Fibrillated forms were compared to a conventional form of cellulose which has been used in food for over 85 years and has Generally Recognized as safe regulatory status in the USA. An alternative testing strategy including simulated digestion was developed to compare the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of seven different types of fibrillated cellulose, following European Food Safety Authority guidance. Fibrillated cellulose is a next-generation material in development for a variety of applications, including use in food and food-contact materials.
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