In the last years, scientific literature has reported the possibility of pandemics connected to the antibiotic resistance (AMR, Antimicrobial resistance) which, it is estimated, will be among the top 10 causes of death in the world starting from 2050. AMR monitoring has assumed a fundamental importance, considering that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that multi-resistant pathogenic bacteria could lead the world a new pre-antibiotic era. For this reason, the search for new substances with antimicrobial activity assumes fundamental importance; among these, Zn oxide nanoparticles and essential oils have shown antimicrobial activity against different microbial classes. The development of films containing nanoparticles and/or essential oils for applications in the medical (wound dressing) and food (bioactive packaging) fields belong to this research field. From a point of view of the circular economy, it is possible to obtaining films starting from biomacromolecules such as proteins and polysaccharides deriving from food industry waste and by-products (e.g. whey proteins and polysaccharides deriving from yeast) has been demonstrated.
