NADES blend for bioactive coating design as a sustainable strategy for postharvest control.

Bioactive functional coatings constitute a trendy topic due to they reduce postharvest fruit losses worldwide. Also, they could be carriers of biocompounds providing health benefits to the consumer. In this work, an innovative natural bioactive coating based on Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES) and Larrea divaricata extract was optimized by mixture-mixture design for the management of postharvest diseases caused by Monilinia fructicola. A NADES composed of lactic acid-glucose-water (LGH) for phenolic extraction from L. divaricata was optimized by a Simplex Lattice design and response surface methodology (RSM).Then, a d-optimal mixture-mixture design was carried out in order to optimize the bioactive coating composition, being the optimal proportion of 0.7 L. divaricata-LGH extract and 0.3 NADES plasticizer (composed by glycerol, citric acid and water). The optimal biocoating achieved an in vitro antimicrobial activity of 72 % against M. fructicola. Interestingly, NADES plasticizer improves the biocoating functionality, creating a smooth and uniform surface.