Essential oils have shown to have antimicrobial activity against a wide range of bacteria through a multitude of different mechanisms. In this research, two essential oils (EOs), thymol and carvacrol, were encapsulated in nanoparticles made via miniemulsion thiol-ene photopolymerization. We developed a synthetic methodology to tailor the antimicrobial efficacy of the encapsulated EO-nanoparticles. The antimicrobial activity of the EO-nanoparticles was evaluated against Escherichia coli O157-H7, E. coli ATCC 25922, Staphylococcus aureus RN 6390, Burkholderia cenocepacia K-56 and Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 through a combination of well diffusion, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and time-kill assays. Nanoparticles loaded with a combination of carvacrol and thymol showed greater antimicrobial efficacy than carvacrol-containing nanoparticles. The MIC values were consistent across all strains of bacteria except B. subtilis, which exhibited highest sensitive to the EO-nanoparticles. This study shows that the emulsion polymerization can be used as a methodology to create antimicrobial particles with encapsulated EO. The results show that nanoparticles loaded with a mixture of carvacrol and thymol are effective against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.
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