Production and Evaluation of Antimicrobial Microcapsules with Essential Oils Using Complex Coacervation

Abstract

Nowadays, the needs and requirements to avoid infections during surgical operations, require to be more imaginative than ever. The one-use textiles substrates that are used in hospitals can be, also, a way to transport the antibacterial effect around the own building. This is the main objective of this work; to use clothes and textiles surfaces as antibacterial systems using natural components. Microencapsulation has shown in several occasions the effectivity to protect and vehiculize active principles that can be used for medical treatments. In this case, essential oils have been used as antimicrobial agent, that when combined with shell polymers based on Chitosan of different molecular weight distribution and Arabic gum, allows them to act against Gram (+) and Gram ( − ) bacteria. The study of the efficiency of all the samples made gave a high value due to its character similar to hydrogels, while the determination of solids was higher when it was a question of samples made with a low molecular weight. The essential oil used has a very volatile character formed by more than 40 components and with the help of FT-IR and TGA it has been possible to corroborate that all its components were encapsulated. The impregnation of the different samples to the tissue was successful and allowed the antibacterial study to be carried out, which was carried out in duplicate on each sample and demonstrated that they have bacterial activity.