Abstract
Thymol has been applied as a spice and antibacterial agent in commercial products. However, the utilization of thymol in the food and pharmaceutical field has recently been limited by its poor water solubility and stability. In this work, a caseinate-stabilized thymol nanosuspension was fabricated by pH-driven methods to overcome those limitations. Firstly, the chemical stability of thymol at different pH value conditions was investigated. The physiochemical properties of thymol nanosuspensions were then characterized, such as average particle size, zeta potential, encapsulation efficiency, and loading capacity. Meanwhile, the X-ray diffraction results showed that thymol was present as an amorphous state in the nanosuspensions. The thermal stability of thymol was slightly enhanced by encapsulation through this process, and the thymol nanosuspensions were stable during the long-term storage, and the average particle size of nanosuspensions showed that there was no aggregation of nanosuspensions during storage and high temperature. Finally, the antimicrobial activity of thymol nanosuspensions was evaluated by investigating the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) against Salmomella enterca, Staphlococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Listeria monocytogenes. These results could provide useful information and implications for promoting the application of thymol in food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical commercial products.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 1074 |
Journal | Foods |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2021 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: This research was funded by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M682111), “Shuangqian Project” of Scientific and Technological Innovation of High-end Talents-Natural Science, Jiangxi Province (S2019GDKX2836), the State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology of Nanchang University (No. SKLF-KF-2020015), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (grant number 2021A1515010901), the Natural Science Foundation of Hainan Province of China (grant number 320QN325), the Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund for Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (grant number 1630122017016 and 1630122021006), and the ‘Guangdong Special Support Plan’ Science and Technology Innovation Young Talents Project (2019TQ05N133).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- Caseinate
- Nanosuspensions
- PH-driven method
- Thymol
- Water solubility