Background Intelligent packaging is the newest technology within the food packaging field. Even though this technology is still growing and not fully commercially viable, it has enormous potential to improve the safety, quality, and traceability of food products, as well as its convenience for consumers. Scope and Approach This paper first describes both the technical aspects and commercial applications of the most representative intelligent technologies-indicators, data carriers, and sensors-with special focus on systems and devices that are directly integrated into the package. Secondly, to provide useful guidelines for future research in the field, the paper discusses some important aspects that still hinder the full exploitation of intelligent technology within the food packaging industry.

FT-IR, in combination with residual amino group determination using a fluorescence technique, has been used to investigate the chemical functional groups involved in the cross-linking reaction between glutaraldehyde and gelatin molecules. The results suggest that, at high pH values (i.e., close to the pK(a) of lysine), the cross-linking reaction is mainly governed by the well-known Schiff base formation, whereas at low pH (i.e., when the amino groups of lysine are protonated), the reaction may also involve the -OH groups of hydroxyproline and hydroxylysine, leading to the formation of hemiacetals.

The electrical conductivity of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) obtained from graphene oxide (GO) using sodium borohydride (NaBH) as a reducing agent has been investigated as a function of time (2 min to 24 h) and temperature (20 °C to 80 °C). Using a 300 mM aqueous NaBH solution at 80 °C, reduction of GO occurred to a large extent during the first 10 min, which yielded a conductivity increase of 5 orders of magnitude to 10 S m. During the residual 1400 min of reaction, the reduction rate decreased significantly, eventually resulting in a rGO conductivity of 1500 S m. High resolution XPS measurements showed that C/O increased from 2.2 for the GO to 6.9 for the rGO at the longest reaction times, due to the elimination of oxygen. The steep increase in conductivity recorded during the first 8-12 min of reaction was mainly due to the reduction of C-O (e.g., hydroxyl and epoxy) groups, suggesting the preferential attack of the reducing agent on C-O rather than C[double bond, length as m-dash]O groups. In addition, the specular variation of the percentage content of C-O bond functionalities with the sum of Csp and Csp indicated that the reduction of epoxy or hydroxyl groups had a greater impact on the restoration of the conductive nature of the graphite structure in rGO. These findings were reflected in the dramatic change in the structural stability of the rGO nanofoams produced by freeze-drying. The reduction protocol in this study allowed to achieve the highest conductivity values reported so far for the aqueous reduction of graphene oxide mediated by sodium borohydride. The 4-probe sheet resistivity approach used to measure the electrical conductivity is also, for the first time, presented in detail for filtrate sheet assemblies' of stacked GO/rGO sheets.