Mechanical and antibacterial properties of novel high performance chitosan/nanocomposite films

•Preparation of ZnO nanoparticles by hydrothermal method and incorporate into chitosan film.•Preparation of silver nanoparticles by direct method in presence of chitosan.•Preparation and characterization of chitosan nanocomposite films.•Characterizations of the prepared chitosan/chitosan nanocomposite films.•The prepared chitosan nanocomposite films showed high antibacterial activity. Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle was successfully synthesized using hydrothermal method as well as, silver (Ag) nanoparticle was direct prepared during chitosan nanocomposites preparation. Chitosan films were investigated by recognized the effect of kinds of acids (formic or acetic acid). Correspondingly, using of concentrated NaOH was checking for facilitating de-casting of the films. Utilization of formic acid arisen higher quality films than those films produced using acetic acid as solvent. Optimization was based on the mechanical properties for both types of acids solvent. Furthermore, the elasticity of the prepared films was enhanced by blending hydroxyl ethylcellulose (HEC) with chitosan. Loading the films by silver and zinc oxide nanoparticles (Ag-NPs and ZnO) was achieved during the preparation of films under the optimum conditions. Characterizations of the prepared ZnO nanoparticles and the prepared nanocomposites films were investigated by FT-IR, XRD, SEM, TEM and EDAX. Chitosan nanocomposite films displayed good Antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhamrium, Bacillus cereus, and Listeria monocyte. Therefore, these films can be used for packaging applications.