Biomimetics of avocado peel for designing innovative textiles

Abstract

Avocado peel has properties that make it a suitable model for producing biodegradable textile packaging material for storing fatty food and cosmetic substances. For this purpose we evaluated the stability of avocado peel with a simple spectrophotometric analysis and simultaneously tested the avocado pulp for freshness. It is known that an avocado contains quickly perishable unsaturated fatty substances. The avocado‘s pericarp was recorded on scanning electron microscopy (SEM) enabling us to sum up, according to the principles of biomimetics, its structure which was then used in designing our textile packaging material. For this purpose we also tested the mechanical properties of the avocado peel. The first imitation of the avocado peel, in an effort to approximate the textile packaging material, was formed by dyeing fine multilayer cotton gauze with synthetic chlorophyll.