**1. Introduction**

An important increasing quantity of plastic waste is being generated yearly for which the precise needed time for its biodegradation is certainly unknown. This environmental awareness has driven the development and improvement of new biodegradable polymers, especially for single-use plastic items [1]. In this sense, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are well-known biopolymers that can be produced microbially by a variety of microorganisms as an energy storage mechanism. They exhibit similar performance in terms of mechanical, thermal, and barrier properties than petroleum-derived polymers and, thus, they can potentially replace conventional thermoplastics (e.g., polyolefins) in a wide range of applications [2]. In particular, barrier properties are of fundamental importance for food packaging applications. For instance, there are many food products that are very sensitive to oxidation and, to overcome this issue, packages with reduced oxygen permeability are desirable. Additionally, the water resistance is also important, particularly for plastic materials intended for direct contact with high moisture foodstuff as well as materials to be applied in high humidity conditions during storage and/or transport [3].

Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) is currently the most common representative of PHAs and this biopolymer has been proposed for short-term food applications [4]. However, PHB is a brittle polymer,

as its enzymatic polymerization leads to the formation of macromolecules with highly ordered stereochemical structures, resulting in a large degree of crystallinity [5]. One of the grea<sup>t</sup> advantages of PHB over many other biodegradable polymers is its biodegradability under aerobic as well as anaerobic conditions [6]. For this reason, PHB and their blends with other biopolymers, for instance polylactide (PLA), have been extensively investigated for food packaging applications [7–9]. One of the potential application fields of these materials is the development of films for packaging applications. As an example, Zhang et al. [10] studied PHB/PLA blends in different ratios and concluded that by blending PLA with 25 wt. % of PHB some interactions between both biopolymer matrices can be achieved. Furthermore, their results also showed improved mechanical properties.

Palladium nanoparticles (PdNPs) are well known by their ability to dissociate hydrogen molecules to single atoms. This fact is further enhanced due to its nano-sized form and resultant high surface-to-volume ratio [11]. It has been demonstrated that the oxygen scavenging activity of palladium-based oxygen scavenging films is strongly dependent on the coating substrate as well as on the palladium deposition thickness. Optimization of these parameters can result in active scavenging films where the residual headspace oxygen of packaged foods can be scavenged very quickly [10]. There is a drive to find ways to incorporate active packaging technologies directly into the package walls. In spite of the advantages that they offer in maintaining quality and extending shelf life, such systems are still little used. The reason stems from the additional cost involved, the potential toxicity of the added scavenger in the food contact layer, and even more so because of the lack of sufficient technical information on their performance and the lack of understanding of how to apply them effectively [12].

Electrospinning is a fiber production method that employs high electric forces to draw charged threads of polymer solutions or melts up to fiber diameters below 100 nm. It is a low startup cost process in which a wide variety of both polymer and non-polymer materials have been used to form mats composed of nanofibers with a high surface area-to-volume ratio [13]. The electrospinning process has a wide variety of applications such as medical, filtration, tissue engineering, food engineering, packaging, etc. [14–16]. Until now, this processing technology remained to a laboratory scale. However, recent developments in instrumentation and process aid design have allowed this process to be scaled to achieve the production volumes required in certain industrial commodity applications such as fortified foods and active packaging [17].

In active packaging, nanotechnology has a significant potential because nanostructures display a high surface-to-volume ratio and specific surface properties. Considering the high surface energy of nanoparticles, which tend to agglomerate and to prevent this aggregation, either polar polymers or surfactants can be used as protective agents and stabilizers of the nanoparticles. This is extremely necessary to obtain mono-dispersed uniform particles and to be, thereafter, used in various application purposes [18–20]. The objective of the present study was to prepare and characterize, for the first time, PHB films by the electrospinning process incorporating PdNPs. In order to improve the dispersion of the PdNPs in the PHB matrix, different surfactants were tested.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**
