Brazilian scientists have transformed the skin of an Amazonian farmed fish into a clear, durable biofilm that could one day replace some plastic food packaging. The work highlights a new way to cut waste and add value to aquaculture.
Turning what is usually thrown away into something that could help solve a global pollution problem, Brazilian researchers have created a clear, flexible biofilm for food packaging using the skin of an Amazonian fish.
The material, developed by scientists at the University of São Paulo and EMBRAPA Pecuária Sudeste, is made from the skin of tambatinga, a farmed fish that is a cross between tambaqui and pirapitinga. The team reports that the resulting film is strong, transparent and blocks ultraviolet light better than many other gelatin-based materials described in scientific literature.
The study, supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) through the Food Research Center (FoRC), is published in the journal Foods.
The work taps into a growing push to replace petroleum-based plastics in food packaging with biodegradable alternatives. Conventional plastic films are cheap and effective but persist in the environment for decades, clogging landfills, rivers and oceans.
The new fish-skin film builds on decades of effort to find more sustainable materials, according to food engineer Paulo José do Amaral Sobral, a professor in the Department of Food Engineering at University of São Paulo’s Pirassununga campus.
“We’ve been working for over 25 years on the development of films based on biopolymers, such as proteins and polysaccharides, with the aim of applying this material to food packaging and reducing the environmental impact, since there are many problems associated with the accumulation of synthetic packaging in nature,” Sobral said in a news release.
Tambatinga is already valued in aquaculture for its fast growth and as a rich source of collagen, the protein that gives structure to skin and connective tissue. Because the species is native to tropical waters, its skin may contain higher levels of certain amino acids, which can improve the functional and structural properties of the gelatin extracted from it.
In the new study, Sobral worked with zootechnician Manuel Antonio Chagas Jacintho and food engineer Fernanda Ramalho Procopio, both from EMBRAPA. They began by thoroughly cleaning the fish skins, then extracting gelatin using hot water and acetic acid to remove impurities.
The researchers then prepared a film-forming solution using two grams of gelatin for every 100 grams of solution. When dried into thin sheets, this mixture produced a transparent, uniform film that was flexible yet mechanically resistant.
Tests showed that the tambatinga-based film had several promising features for packaging. It was highly resistant, suggesting it could withstand handling and transport. It also blocked ultraviolet rays more effectively than many other gelatin films, which could help protect light-sensitive foods from degradation. In addition, it had lower water vapor permeability than other gelatin-based materials reported in the literature, meaning it slowed the passage of moisture better than many similar biopolymer films.
Those properties point to a way to turn fish skin, often treated as industrial waste, into a renewable, high-value raw material for sustainable packaging. Using such byproducts can reduce the environmental footprint of both aquaculture and the packaging industry by cutting waste and replacing some fossil-fuel-based plastics.
However, the material is not ready to replace plastic wrap on supermarket shelves just yet. One key limitation is that the film is sensitive to moisture, which restricts what it can safely package.
“For that reason, for now, they can only be used in dehydrated products, such as nuts and chestnuts,” Sobral added.
That means the first real-world uses, if the technology is scaled up, would likely be in packaging dry foods that do not require high moisture barriers, such as snack nuts, seeds or certain confectionery items.
The team sees this as a starting point rather than an endpoint. Further research will focus on improving the film’s resistance to humidity, possibly by blending the fish gelatin with other biopolymers, adding natural additives or applying protective coatings. The researchers would also want to test how the material behaves under real storage and transport conditions and to evaluate its safety and performance for different types of foods.
Beyond food packaging, the scientists believe that better-controlled gelatin films from tambatinga skin could eventually find uses in pharmaceuticals and biomedical products, areas where collagen-based materials are already used for capsules, wound dressings and tissue engineering scaffolds. Any such applications would require additional testing and regulatory approvals.
If these films can be refined and produced at scale, they could add economic value to the aquaculture sector by creating a new market for fish skin that would otherwise be discarded. That, in turn, could support more integrated and environmentally responsible production chains in regions where tambatinga is farmed.
The project also illustrates how regional biodiversity and local industries can drive innovation. By looking closely at a common farmed fish from the Amazon basin, the researchers identified a resource that could help address a global challenge: reducing dependence on persistent plastics.
As scientists continue to search for materials that are both functional and environmentally friendly, the tambatinga biofilm offers a glimpse of a future in which yesterday’s waste becomes tomorrow’s sustainable packaging.