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MATERIALS FOR LIFE SCIENCES
Synthesis, characterization and antibacterial activity
of thymol-loaded polylactic acid microparticles
entrapped with essential oils of varying viscosity
Agni Kumar Biswal1 , Isha Vashisht1 , Aamir Khan1 , Shivangi Sharma1 , andSampa Saha1,*
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India
Received: 9 December 2018
Accepted: 1 April 2019
� Springer Science+Business
Media, LLC, part of Springer
Nature 2019
ABSTRACT
Double emulsion technique (W1/O/W2) was used to achieve PLA (polylactic
acid)-based microparticles loaded with thymol (hydrophilic antibacterial active)
with high encapsulation efficiency ([ 90%) that was later released in water in
controlled fashion. In order to enhance the release of thymol from semicrys-
talline slow degrading PLA matrix, pores were introduced into the particles by
incorporating minute quantity of essential oils (EOs) such as castor, mustard,
olive and coconut oils of varying viscosity (from 128 to 13 mPa S). Strikingly, it
was found that the pore size of microparticles (pore size 1.2–0.53 lm and
specific surface area 7.5–2.1 m2/g) has been influenced by the viscosity of EOs.
The plausible mechanism of formation of pores using EOs was also explored. As
expected, the release rate of thymol did get accelerate with the increase in pore
density and its release mechanism can well be explained with the help of power
law model. In addition to that, these porous particles were demonstrated to act
as an effective carrier for continuous delivery of thymol with enhanced inhibi-
tory activity probably due to synergistic action of EOs and thymol. Therefore,
EOs employed here served dual purposes. These PLA-based microparticles
composed of completely natural ingredients can be exploited as active food
packaging material to prolong the shelf life of food.
Introduction
Traditionally, active compounds were directly added
to food formulation for protecting food from micro-
bial spoilage, thereby enhancing food shelf life. But
these methods suffer from several limitations such as
more amount of additives are needed to protect food
materials from deterioration, raw/fresh food may
lose their taste/flavor, and also there may be some
complex reaction between food and actives [1–3].
Consequently, there is a demand in food industry for
polymer packaging from which active compounds
are diffused onto the food surface in order to prevent
Address correspondence to E-mail: [email protected]
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-03593-7
J Mater Sci
Materials for life sciences
bacterial growth. In this respect, controlled release
packaging (CRP) technology can be beneficial where
actives, e.g., antibacterials, are released from pack-
aging matrix in continuous fashion to inhibit bacterial
growth for prolonged period [4]. Controlled release
packaging is an up-growing domain of the food
industry [5]. Several polymeric forms [5, 6] have been
utilized for packaging, such as sachets, polymeric
coating [7], polymeric films [8, 9] and polymeric
microparticles [10]. Among these materials, poly-
meric microparticles have been less studied com-
pared to polymeric films. One of those few reports
includes a system developed by Incarnato and his
group, comprised of antioxidant (a-tocopherol)microencapsulated PLA (polylactide) microparticles
for the active packaging of food materials [10]. In our
previous publication, antibacterial (benzoic acid) was
encapsulated into hollow PLA microparticles using
emulsion solvent evaporation method and it was
shown that the controlled release of benzoic acid
inhibited the bacterial growth over 1 month [11].
Inspired by all these reports, we have decided to
focus our current work on PLA-based porous
microparticles as packaging materials. Furthermore,
among the biodegradable polymers, PLA micropar-
ticles have received extensive attention as drug
delivery vehicle as well as food packaging matrix
because they are suitable for body/food contact as
per EU (Commission Regulation EU No. 10/2011)
and US (FCS Notifications No. 178/2002 and No.
475/2005) legislation [12]. In food industry, the use of
natural additives with antibacterial properties
instead of chemical additives has been immensely
increased due to their no side effects on human
health [13–15]. Among the plethora of naturally
occurring antibacterial, thymol (2-isopropyl-5-
methylphenol), a monoterpene phenol derivative of
cymene, is a well-known natural antibacterial agent
[16]. Thymol displays strong antimicrobial activity
against food-borne pathogenic organisms such as
E. coli, monocytogenes, typhi, S. aureus, and Candida
albicans [17] and hence can be considered for food
packaging applications [18]. In addition to thymol,
among all natural resources, essential oils (EOs) also
show sufficiently high antimicrobial behavior. They
are complex mixture of volatile components such as
terpenoids, monoterpenoids, sesquiterpinoids and
their oxygenated derivatives, which can easily diffuse
across cell membrane to induce biological reactions
[19]. Essential oils have wide application as
therapeutic agents, as complementary medicines and
as food preservatives [20, 21]. Use of essential oil as
additives in edible films and coating in food pack-
aging has been extensively exploited in the last few
decades. For example, Wu and his group incorpo-
rated cinnamon essential oil containing nanolipo-
somes as an additive in gelatin films which not only
improved the antibacterial property of gelatin film
but also controlled its release rate [22]. Moreover,
these essential oils have also been used in combina-
tion with another antibacterial in order to enhance
the antibacterial efficacy of the system [23, 24].Taking
into account these previous works, herein combina-
tion of thymol and one of several essential oils with
varying viscosity was used as model antibacterials
co-encapsulated in PLA-based microparticles by
employing W/O/W double emulsion solvent evap-
oration method. It is well known that suitable com-
bination of emulsion solvent evaporation and phase
separation by using non-solvent may yield porous
particles which might help in controlling as well as in
accelerating the active release from the particles [25].
In this study, it was hypothesized that minute
quantity of these essential oils may act as non-solvent
and hence may result pores in PLA particles and
these pores can be tunable depending upon the vis-
cosity of the oils employed. Originality of the work
mainly lies here in the hypothesis. Therefore, in
addition to show a synergistic antibacterial effect,
these oils may also help in controlling the release of
antibacterial (thymol). In this paper, along with a
fixed concentration of thymol, EOs such as castor oil,
mustard oil, olive oil and coconut oil with viscosity
ranging from 128 to 13 mPa S (to cover a wide range
of viscosity which encompasses most of the edible/
medicinal oil [21]) were employed individually into
PLA microparticles to study the effect of viscosity of
oils on the pore formation, and a probable reason
behind the formation of porous particles was also
discussed here. All formulations were thoroughly
characterized, and their release profiles were studied
at neutral buffer. An attempt was also made to
understand the release mechanism with the help of
power law model. Finally, the antibacterial activity of
all the particles was assessed over time against E. coli
using plate spreading method.
J Mater Sci
Materials and methods
Materials
Polylactide (grade 3052D) was purchased from Nat-
ureWorks, USA. PVA (poly(vinyl alcohol)) cold, with
molecular weight 125000 g/mol, was procured from
Central Drug House (CDH), India. Thymol (99.6%
pure) was purchased from Loba Chemie. Dichlor-
omethane (DCM) (HPLC grade) was obtained from
Fischer, India. Essential oils such as coconut, castor,
olive and mustard oil were purchased from Marico,
Sisla laboratories, Zetun Australian and Babaji
Udyog, respectively, and their viscosity was deter-
mined by parallel-plate rheometer. The materials for
antimicrobial study such as nutrient agar and luria
broth were purchased from Hi-Media. The bacteria
Escherichia coli (E. coli) and BL21 DE3 gold strain were
obtained from Agilent Technologies, USA.
Fabrication of microparticles
Porous PLA microparticles were prepared using a
simple water/oil/water double emulsion technique.
At first, 5 wt% of PLA (0.3 g) solution was prepared
in 6 mL of DCM and 0.15 g of thymol was added to
the solution. A previously prepared 1 mL of 0.1 wt%
PVA aqueous solution was added dropwise to the
above mixture to make w/o primary emulsion. To
this emulsion, 0.01 mL of one of the four essential oils
(castor/mustard/coconut/olive) was added under
constant stirring and the whole emulsion was stirred
for 20 min. The resultant solution was then added to
50 mL of 0.25 wt% (w/w) PVA solution containing
1 mL DCM and emulsified under mechanical stirring
at 250 rpm for 4 min at room temperature. After the
formation of emulsion droplets, 150 mL of 0.25 wt%
(w/w) PVA solution was added and stirred using
overhead stirrer for 4 h. After complete removal of
DCM, the solid microparticles were collected and
washed for several times. The microparticles were
then freeze-dried and stored for further
characterizations.
Characterizations
Morphological analysis
The particle size and surface morphologies (includ-
ing cross section) of microparticles were analyzed
using scanning electron microscope, Zeiss EVO50 at
20 kV. In order to see inside of the particles, before
analysis, samples were dipped into liquid nitrogen
and cross-sectioned by a razor blade. The gold coat-
ing of samples was carried out using a sputter coater.
The particle size distribution was determined using
Image J software.
Viscosity and interfacial tension measurements
Viscosity of PLA solutions (5 wt% in 200 mL DCM)
with and without EOs (333.3 lL) was measured using
Brookfield Viscometer. The interfacial tension
between PLA solutions changing different EOs and
aqueous phase (0.1 and 0.25 wt% PVA solutions) was
measured by Tensiometer (K100, Kruss) using Du
Nouy ring method.
Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis
BET specific surface areas of polymeric microparti-
cles were measured by BET method (N2 adsorption)
using Quantachrome Autosorb IQ instruments at
77.35 K.
Thermal analysis
Thermal properties of microparticles were investi-
gated by using differential scanning calorimeter
(Q200, TA instrument) under nitrogen atmosphere.
All the samples were oven-dried before experiment.
Then, samples were heated from 20 to 200 �C at a
heating rate of 10 �C/min and cooled to 30 �C. Again,
samples were heated up to 200 �C keeping the same
heating rate. The resultant thermal transitions were
recorded in the thermograms.
Distribution of active ingredient in microparticles
Distribution of thymol across the surface and within
the bulk of microspheres was investigated by using
confocal Raman microscope (Gloucestershire, GL 127
DW, UK). The particles (whole and cross sections)
were irradiated at 785 nm near-infrared diode laser
with a scanning range of 3200 to 100 cm-1.
Encapsulation efficiency
The encapsulation efficiency of thymol-loaded
microparticles was determined by using UV–Vis
J Mater Sci
spectroscopy. 20 mg of thymol-loaded microparticles
(20 mg) was dissolved in DCM, and the solvent was
evaporated to dryness. Subsequently, PBS solution
(2 mL) was added and stirred for 30 min to facilitate
partitioning of thymol into PBS (aqueous). Mixture
was allowed to keep undisturbed for 2 h to separate
DCM and aqueous phase. The aqueous phase was
withdrawn and analyzed by UV spectrophotometer
(T90 ? UV/VIS spectrometer, PG instruments Ltd.)
for determining the thymol contents. Prior to this
measurement, a calibration curve of thymol was
made in PBS solution. The encapsulation efficiency
(%) was calculated according to the given equation. A
control experiment was also done to find out the
extraction efficiency of thymol from DCM to water
following the literature procedure [11]:
Encapsulation efficiency %ð Þ
¼ Experimental active agent loading
Theoretical active agent loading� 100:
In vitro release of thymol from microparticles
Release study of thymol was carried out in PBS buffer
of pH 7 at 37 �C and 200 rpm in an orbital shaker.
20 mg of microparticles was dispersed in 5 mL of
PBS buffer in vial and kept under the above condi-
tion. After each time interval, 2.5 mL of solution was
withdrawn from each vial and then 2.5 mL of fresh
buffer was added to the vial. Concentration of
released thymol from each withdrawal was deter-
mined by UV–Visible spectroscopy at 274 nm, and
release percentage was calculated by the following
equation:
Assessment of antibacterial activity of microparticles
Antimicrobial activity of samples A–E was studied
against Escherichia coli by using plate spreading
method [11]. At first, minimum inhibitory concen-
tration (MIC) of free thymol as well as thymol-loaded
microparticles having different EOs required to
completely inhibit the bacterial growth was deter-
mined. The MIC value of free thymol was evaluated
by taking its concentrations ranges from 100 to
500 lg/mL in Luria broth solution. To determine the
particle concentration for each sample (sample A–E)
to completely inhibit the bacterial growth, various
concentrations of particles ranging from 20 to 100 mg
in 1 mL of luria broth solution were kept in incubator
shaker at 200 rpm and at 37 �C for 24 h and then
1 mL of supernatant was taken out from each con-
centration. 10 lL of a freshly prepared E. coli culture
having bacterial concentration of 8 9 108 cells/mL
was inoculated into extracted samples and incubated
for 24 h. 50 lL of incubated solution was spread onto
the previously prepared nutrient agar petri plates
and left it over for drying. Finally, the plates were
kept for incubation and the bacterial growth was
calculated and recorded as CFU/mL. The particle
concentration to fully inhibit bacterial growth was
estimated. After finding out these concentrations, the
same concentration was used for determining their
long-term antibacterial activity over 10 days using
the same plate spreadingmethod asmentioned above.
After extraction of sample at each interval, fresh luria
broth solution was added to the stock solution to
replace the extracted volume. After this, the incubated
bacterial solutions taken at various time intervals were
diluted by PBS solution of pH 7 to have several dilu-
tions ranging from 101 to 108 times. 50 lL of each
samples was plated onto nutrient agar petri plates and
incubated under the same condition as mentioned
above. The number of colonies was counted and
reported as colony-forming unit per mL (CFU/mL) or
as log (CFU/ml). All experiments were run in tripli-
cates. At the same time, a set of samples A to Ewithout
thymol-loaded particles were also tested.
Results and discussion
Fabrication of microparticles
In a typical experiment, polymer solution (O) was
prepared by dissolving the polymer (PLA) and thy-
mol in a volatile organic solvent (dichloromethane).
The aqueous 0.1% (w/v) PVA solution (W1) was
added dropwise to the resultant polymer solution
% Active agent release ¼ Amount of active agent in supernatant
Amount of total active agent used in encapsulatedmicroparticles� 100:
J Mater Sci
(O) followed by addition of one of the essential oils
(castor, mustard, coconut and olive) to make (W1/O)
emulsion. Then, the entire emulsion was poured into
another PVA solution (0.25%, w/v) (W2) and emul-
sified to form a W1/O/W2 double emulsion using an
overhead stirrer. Finally, nascent emulsion droplets
were hardened by subsequent removal of solvent in
order to make microparticles. According to SEM
investigations, thymol along with one of the four
essential oils (EOs)-loaded microparticles has
spherical morphology with porous surfaces, as
shown in Fig. 1. The variation in particle size and
pore size was observed for different essential oils
with varying viscosity, and the data are summarized
in Table 1. It was assumed that stability of the inner
aqueous phase would play a pivotal role in generat-
ing particles with porous morphology. The particle
size distribution histogram (histogram not shown
here) suggested that the size of thymol- and EO-en-
capsulated microparticles was found to be higher
(i) (ii)
(iii) (iv)
(v)
Figure 1 SEM micrographs
for (i) sample A, (ii) sample B,
(iii) sample C, (iv) sample D,
(v) sample E and their
respective zoom in images of
the surfaces (insets).
J Mater Sci
compared to the particles without the addition of EO
presumably due to the inclusion of EO that might
have stabilized the inner aqueous droplet (Fig S1,
discussed later). Furthermore, close examination of
SEM images of all microparticles revealed the gen-
eration of porous surfaces only with the microparti-
cles which contained EO. From the cross-sectional
view of particles (Fig S2), it can be understood that
distribution of pores was throughout the bulk as well
as on surface of microparticles except for the sample
A. Based on SEM images analyzed by ImageJ soft-
ware, the pore size and pore density on the surface of
microparticles were calculated and are displayed in
Table 1. Strikingly, it was observed that porous
morphology of these particles did show a correlation
with viscosity of EOs, because it was ascertained
from SEM images that castor oil with the highest
viscosity (128 mPa S) resulted microparticles with
the highest pore size and pore density, followed by
mustard (23.2 mPa S), olive (18.49 mPa S) and coco-
nut oil (13.07 mPa S), respectively (Fig. 1ii–v,
Table 1). Surface area calculated from BET analysis
further supported this trend (Fig S3, Table 1) by
showing almost linear fit to the curve obtained by
plotting specific surface area versus viscosity of EOs.
In order to understand the effect of EOs, only thymol-
loaded PLA particles were also fabricated without the
addition of essential oil and smooth spheres were
formed with non-porous surfaces (Fig. 1i). Taken
together all the facts discussed above, the plausible
mechanism of formation of pores in the microparti-
cles in the presence of EOs can be explained as fol-
lows (Scheme 1). Double emulsions (W1/O/W2) are
a complex system composed of dispersed oil droplets
(i.e., polymer and essential oil solution in DCM)
which contain even tinier inner water droplets (W1).
There can be two ways by which pores might be
formed onto the surface of the particles. In case of
W/O/W double emulsion, surface pores can be
generated by the inner aqueous droplets (W1) with
progressive evaporation of DCM. But, as per litera-
ture reports, inner aqueous volume of 12% (used in
this study) may not be sufficient to generate pores
onto the viscous polymer surface layer by dispersing
inner aqueous droplet [26]. Moreover, no surface
pores can be found on the particles fabricated with-
out EOs (sample A). However, for samples with EOs,
evaporation of DCM may also lead to generate
additional tiny droplets inside the dispersed oil
droplets due to the phase separation of essential oil (a
non-solvent for PLA [27] due to significant differ-
ences in solubility parameter of PLA and EOs [28])
Table 1 Viscosity of essential oils (EOs), particle size, pore size, surface area and encapsulation efficiency of thymol-loaded
microparticles
Sample name
(composition)
Name of
EOs
employed
Viscosity of
EOsa (mPa S)
Particle
sizeb
(lm)
Pore sizeb
(lm)
Pore densityb (number
of pores/lm2) 910-2
Specific
surface areac
(m2/g)
Encapsulation
efficiencyd (%)
Sample A (PLA/
thymol)
No EOs – 193 ± 42 – – – 90.0
Sample B (PLA/
thymol/castor)
Castor oil 128 207 ± 61 1.20 ± 0.12 5 ± 0.28 7.51 94.5
Sample C (PLA/
thymol/mustard)
Mustard oil 23.2 216 ± 54 0.84 ± 0.13 1 ± 0.05 3.3 99.3
Sample D (PLA/
thymol/olive)
Olive oil 18.49 195 ± 53 0.77 ± 0.12 0.7 ± 0.10 2.0 97.8
Sample E (PLA/
thymol/coconut)
Coconut oil 13.07 221 ± 52 0.53 ± 0.05 0.4 ± 0.04 2.1 95.2
aViscosity of oils was measured by using parallel-plate rheometerbParticle size, pore size and pore density were measured from SEM images using ImageJ software; average pore number was obtained by
counting only the visible side of the microparticles in SEM images; so, the pore number in the whole particle should be approximately
double of the reported valuescSpecific surface area was measured by BET method, and the values are average of three runsdEncapsulation efficiency was determined from UV/Vis spectrophotometer, and the values are average of three runs
J Mater Sci
from polymer phase [23] (see arrows in Fig S1). Ini-
tially, polymer (PLA) and EOs were well soluble in
dichloromethane (DCM). As evaporation of dichlor-
omethane was progressed, both polymer and EO
concentration got increased that resulted the phase
separation of EO and polymer due to their immisci-
bility [29]. Then, initially formed tiny EO droplets
within emulsion droplet may coalesce into small EO
droplets. It was postulated that the porous skin layer
of particles resulted from the inclusion of inner
aqueous droplets stabilized by these small EO dro-
plets along with PVA (surfactant) within the polymer
skin layer which was solidified at the outer interface
[26]. This kinetic arrest traps inner water phase to
yield pores/voids after evaporation of water. To
further understand the water droplet stabilization by
EO, the viscosity of organic phase and interfacial
tension between organic and water phases (which
contain 0.1 wt% and 0.25 wt% PVA solution as inner
water and outer water phase, respectively) were
measured for all the samples (samples A–E, Table SI).
It is clear from Table SI that the value of interfacial
tension between water and organic phase is sub-
stantially higher in the presence of EOs for 0.1 wt%
PVA solution than the interfacial tension between
organic phase with EOs and water phase comprising
0.25 wt% PVA due to higher surfactant concentration
at the interface. This may drive the EO droplets
toward the outer water phase from the inner water
phase [30, 31]. But, there is insignificant change in
interfacial tension among the various EOs or no oil at
that interface. In this scenario, viscosity of the organic
phase plays the pivotal role for arresting the inner
water droplet. As expected, viscosity of organic
phase increases with the increase in viscosity of EOs.
Hence, it can be assumed that the EO droplets will be
kinetically trapped at the skin for stabilizing inner
water droplet because of high viscosity exerted by the
oil phase leading to formation of greater pore size
and pore density in the case of castor oil having the
highest viscosity. This is clearly evident in Fig S1b
(see the red arrows). For the similar reason, coconut
oil with least viscosity would favor the formation of
particle skin with minimum pore size and density.
Similar observation was also reported by Kim et al.
[32]. They have observed the arresting of 2-methyl
pentane droplet onto the surface of oil (PLGA in
DCM) droplet similar to particle-stabilized emulsion
owing to the fast extraction of DCM. In our system
also, amount of DCM was kept low (3.3 vol%) which
was marginally higher than its solubility limit (2
vol%) [33] in water so that quick evaporation of DCM
can take place, because, after diffusing through water
only, DCM will be evaporated at water/air interface.
This accelerated DCM evaporation in turn decreased
the time allowed for coalescence of inner water dro-
plets (W1) with the external water phase (W2) and
hence increased the chance of pore formation by
retention of inner aqueous phase (W1). Furthermore,
in another report, Shi et al. [34] also concluded that
the rate of solvent removal plays a key role in
resulting porous structure of microspheres. Finally,
during freeze-drying process under high-vacuum
inner water droplets stabilized by EO droplets along
with PVA and PLA were evaporated and converted
into holes/pores (Scheme 1). However, when these
inner EO droplets were not included into the skin
layer (interfacial region), particles with non-porous
surfaces were formed (sample A). Hence, thymol-
loaded particles with no addition of EO rendered
non-porous surface. But, double emulsion was also
necessary to make the porous shell layer. In our
Scheme 1 Schematic
representation of the formation
of porous microparticles.
J Mater Sci
previous work, it was found that without inclusion of
inner aqueous droplet, no pores can be found onto
the surface of microspheres [23]. Therefore, it was
essential to add EO in the oil phase of double emul-
sion to make particles with porous surface. After
cross-sectioning the particles, it was found that inside
the microspheres, pores were uniformly distributed
throughout the particles even in the case of particles
having no EO (Fig S2(i)). Because of fast removal of
solvent, polymer precipitation will proceed from
surface to the core of microspheres. Hence, inner
aqueous droplet will be trapped inside the micro-
spheres by high-viscous polymer layer as discussed
above. This will finally develop into small pores
inside the microspheres after evaporation of water
[25] even in the case of sample A. It was also noted
that for high-viscous castor oil, pore density and size
were quite bigger compared to the rest of EOs. This
could be attributed to the high-viscous oil phase
(PLA along with EO in DCM) which might have
stabilized the inner water (primary emulsion) droplet
against coalescence by providing strong interfacial
tension [25] (see green arrow in Fig S1b). Therefore,
coconut oil has least viscosity among the four EOs
and displayed minimal porosity (Fig S1e) due to ease
of migration of low-viscous EO toward outer water
phase leading to reduced number of trapped inner
water droplets at the surface
Encapsulation efficiency of thymoland in vitro release study
The encapsulation efficiency of thymol was quite
high and found to vary from* 94 to 99% for samples
B–E (Table 1). A marginal decrease in encapsulation
efficiency was found for castor oil-loaded particles
probably due to its larger pore size compared to
others. However, the low encapsulation efficiency of
thymol for non-porous sample (sample A) implied
the role of hydrophobic interaction of EO with thy-
mol resulting in higher retention of it even with
porous surfaces. In order to predict particles’
behavior as active packaging materials, the in vitro
release study of thymol was conducted for samples
A–E at 37 �C in neutral PBS buffer (pH 7); the same
conditions were used for the bacterial growth during
antibacterial study [35]. As shown in Fig. 2, all sam-
ples displayed a high initial burst release of[ 35%
within 24 h because of adsorption of thymol onto the
surface of particles. Castor oil-loaded particles
showed highest burst release since the pores were
largest among all, and hence the diffusion rate of
thymol was high, especially in comparison with no-
oil-loaded particles having non-porous surface mor-
phology. A large initial release was definitely a plus
for antibacterial packaging applications to provide
immediate protection from bacterial contamination
[36]. After the initial burst, a slow and continuous
release was obtained from internally trapped thymol
irrespective of the nature of samples. As expected,
castor oil-loaded particles with the highest porosity
showed a relatively faster and maximum % of
release (* 65%) compared to its analogs. However,
complete release was not attainable for any samples,
probably due to strong interaction between thymol
and PLA matrix (discussed later). Similar trend was
observed in releasing thymol in water from other
polymeric films [18, 37]. It was noteworthy that
release of thymol from non-porous surface was not
hugely different from the porous particles, partly due
to achievement of considerable porosity inside the
particles and also being a small molecule, diffusion of
thymol remained largely unaffected by the pore size.
Another important observation was that the encap-
sulation of thymol (volatile) in these particles pre-
vented its evaporation to air in its dried form and
hence increased its storage stability [36]. There was
no change in weight of particles over a long period of
time (15 days) when the dry particles were stored in
open air.
Several approaches were reported in the literature
to understand the release kinetics of entrapped agent
Figure 2 In vitro release study of samples A, B, C, D and E in
PBS (pH 7) at 37 �C. All experiments were run in triplicates, and
the average values are shown with error bars.
J Mater Sci
from polymeric matrix. In this respect, many
researchers utilized a classic semiempirical power
law model (Eq. 1) that can be fitted well with the
experimental results to understand the release phe-
nomena predominantly occurred by diffusion,
degradation or a combination of both [38–40]:
Mt
M1¼ ktn; ð1Þ
where Mt and M? are cumulative release of thymol
at time t and infinite, n was a release exponent which
mainly defines the release mechanism, and k was the
rate constant. Such model was applied in our system
too and found to be well-fitted by the experimental
data (Fig S4, Table 2). It was interesting to note that
the release of thymol was characterized by low
release exponent value (n\ 0.2) that proportionally
increased with the porosity of the particles. Same
trend was observed for the value of rate constant
(k) which was least for non-porous particles. As per
the model, for spherical particles, when
n value\ 0.20, release kinetics would follow combi-
nation of both diffusion and erosion path. These
observations suggest that after initial burst release of
surface-adsorbed thymol, water ingression through
the pores was increased marginally for the porous
particles which favored its release slightly over the
non-porous particles. This might be due to strong
aggregation of thymol in PLA matrix that needed to
be solubilized before being released in pure diffusive
mode. Hence, it did not follow pure Fickian release
mode. This indirectly implied the existence of strong
attractive forces between thymol and polymer matrix.
Moreover, according to our hypothesis of pore for-
mation, pores would be surrounded by hydrophobic
EO layer which may significantly inhibit water
ingression through the pores resulting marginal
increase in release rate. In addition, the low n and
k values implied that the PLA degradation did not
happen significantly within the span of testing per-
iod, otherwise release would have been much accel-
erated resulting in an increased n and k values [41].
Active–polymer interactions: analysisof thermal transitions by DSCand spectroscopic investigations by Ramanmicroscopy
It was evident from the release study that there exists
a strong interaction between thymol and PLA matrix.
In order to investigate the type of interactions
between active and polymer, the following investi-
gations were executed. Figure 3 displays the DSC
heating traces of samples A–E. The second heating
traces were recorded after removing the thermal
history of all the samples at 200 �C. All the experi-
mentally determined values of phase transition tem-
peratures such as Tg (glass transition temperature),
Tcc (cold crystallization temperature) and Tm (melting
point) are displayed in Table SII. Introduction of
thymol (melting point 49 �C) into PLA matrix sig-
nificantly affects the crystallization temperature (Tcc).
However, Tg of all samples remains almost unaf-
fected even after the addition of essential oils,
implying the absence of any plasticization/anti-
plasticization effect induced by thymol and essential
oils [11, 42]. Probably, molten thymol acts as sticky
additive which sticks to polymer melt and decreases
the chain mobility to inhibit crystallization and hence
Table 2 Release kinetic parameters (n, k) and correlation
coefficient (R2) calculated by fitting experimental results (Fig
S2) to Eq. 1
Sample Name n k R2
Sample A 0.174 0.34 0.976
Sample B 0.151 0.437 0.965
Sample C 0.145 0.399 0.965
Sample D 0.149 0.387 0.963
Sample E 0.153 0.373 0.968
Figure 3 DSC thermograms of pure PLA, samples A, B, C, D
and E.
J Mater Sci
significantly lowers the crystallinity due to strong
interaction between additive and polymer chain [43].
Furthermore, the absence of melting peak of crystal-
lites of thymol indicates the inhibitory effect on thy-
mol crystallization induced by PLA matrix due to
appreciable interaction between the two [44, 45]. In
addition to that, thymol- and EO-loaded PLA parti-
cles exhibit one broad melting peaks instead of two
peaks observed for pure PLA samples (because of
polymorphic crystalline transition [46, 47]). This
indirectly implies the inhibition of PLA crystalliza-
tion due to significant attractive forces between active
(primarily thymol) and polymer matrix. To further
investigate about the possible interaction between the
thymol and PLA matrix, Raman microscopy was
carried out for all the samples (Fig. 4). After analyz-
ing all the Raman spectra obtained from samples A–
E, noticeable shift of peaks was observed for both
PLA and thymol portions. For example, carbonyl
stretching frequency of PLA has been shifted from
1772 cm-1 (pure PLA) to * 1767 cm-1 for thymol-
and EO-loaded PLA particles presumably due to
H-bonding between ester group of PLA and hydroxyl
group of thymol. Similarly, shifting of characteristic
peaks from thymol portions such as 957 cm-1 (aro-
matic =C–H stretching from thymol) to 961 cm-1,
1262 cm-1 (–C–O stretching from thymol) to
1273 cm-1 and 1624 cm-1 (aromatic –C=C stretching
of thymol) to 1620 cm-1, respectively, for active loa-
ded particles is clearly evident in Fig. 4. Shifting of
these peak positions definitely indicated the preva-
lence of hydrophobic interactions between the aro-
matic ring of thymol and polymer matrix in addition
to H-bonding between them [48, 49].
Evaluation of antibacterial activity
As per literature information, thymol shows antibac-
terial activity against various Gram-positive and
Gram-negative bacteria [36, 50–52]. Herein, E. coli
(Gram-negative bacteria) was chosen to demonstrate
thymol’s antibacterial activity and MIC (minimum
inhibitory concentration) was determined and found
to be 350 lg/mL. This value was in close agreement
with the literature value reported by Cosentino and
group [36] who found a range from 225 to 450 lg/mL
as MIC for E. coli. In order to demonstrate the
antibacterial activity of thymol-loaded PLA particles,
appropriate concentration of thymol-loaded particles
(samples A–E) was first found out at which complete
inhibition of bacterial growth (E. coli) takes place using
plate spreading method (Fig S5) and summarized in
Table SIII. It was evident from these values that con-
centration of thymol-loaded particles was enormously
high compared to the concentration of free thymol due
to the slow release of thymol in water from PLA par-
ticles within the span of testing period (24 h). Similar
observation was made by Esposti et al. [37], who
demonstrated antibacterial activity of thymol released
from acrylic resin. Interestingly, among all the sam-
ples, thymol along with EO-loaded particles showed
lower particle concentration than that of particles with
no oil (sample A). This definitely implied the syner-
gistic antibacterial action of EOs along with thymol
[53]. Among all the EO employed, olive oil displayed
theminimumparticle concentration and hence sample
E can be considered as the most potent particles in
terms of antibacterial action. As the amount of thymol
released was almost equal in all cases within the span
of testing time (24 h), it can be assumed that the con-
siderable difference of reduction in particle concen-
tration among the samples was primarily originated
from essential oils which are well-known natural
antibacterial even at very low concentration. TheFigure 4 Raman spectra for pure thymol, pure PLA, samples A,
B, C, D and E starting from bottom to top.
J Mater Sci
strong antimicrobial activities in olive oil were mainly
due to the presence of long-chain a,b-unsaturatedaldehydes [54], and the reported MIC value of this oil
ranges from 10 to 60 lg/mL [55, 56] for complete
inhibition of bacterial growth. Similarly, the antimi-
crobial activity of mustard oil was attributed to the
presence of allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) [57], MIC of
which ranges from 50 to 1000 lg/ml for complete
inhibition of bacteria [57, 58]. Furthermore, it was also
reported that castor and coconut oil too have the
antimicrobial property because of the presence of
several fatty acids like Ricinoleic acid [59], lauric acids
[60], etc., and their MIC values were found to be in the
range of 50–250 lg/mL [61] and 60–128 lg/mL [62],
respectively. Therefore, it can be assumed that the
antibacterial effect of these oil-loaded microparticles
was due to synergistic combinations of thymol along
with the small amount of EOs [49]. The prolonged
antibacterial activity was also measured for all the
samples against E. coli over a period of[ 1 week. The
data accumulated from the antibacterial tests were
calculated by the ANOVA and student t tests, keeping
the significant level\ 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 on various
samples (Fig. 5, Fig S6). Significant reduction in bac-
terial growth was observed for all the samples (except
sample A) till 11 days due to appreciable release of
thymol from porous particles (Fig. 5, Fig S6). More-
over, particles having no EO showed bacterial growth
inhibition only till 5 days due to low release of thymol
(especially after initial burst) in addition to no-oil effect
from non-porous particles (Fig S6). Apart from this,
E. coli was also incubated with the samples having no
thymol (Fig S7) and it was found that the bacterial
growthwas slightly less than the control. These results
implied that the enhanced antibacterial activity was
only shown by those particles which contain both
essential oil and thymol probably due to synergistic
action of the two actives. Overall, it can be inferred that
continuous and most efficient bacterial growth inhi-
bition effect was observed over a week from porous
PLA particles having olive/mustard oil (with low
particle concentration for complete inhibition) along
with thymol loaded into it.
Conclusions
A facile method based on W/O/W double emulsion
technique was developed for the fabrication of thy-
mol-encapsulated PLA-based microparticles. In order
to accelerate the release of thymol inwater, pores were
generated onto the surface of microparticles by
incorporating minute quantity of essential oils (castor,
olive, mustard and coconut) of varying viscosity.
Interestingly, it was realized that the pore density and
pore size can be easily varied by altering the viscosity
of added essential oils, e.g., being themost viscous EO,
castor oil containing particles showed maximum pore
density and pore size. Presumably, stabilization of
inner aqueous phase by essential oil droplet (phase
separated) along with PVA and PLA was considered
to be responsible for the surface pore formation. The
release mechanism of thymol from these variably
porous particles canwell be explainedwith the help of
power lawmodel. Furthermore, the present study also
demonstrated the effectiveness of thymol-loaded
particles entrapped with essential oils as antibacterial
carrier with enhanced inhibitory activity probably due
to synergistic action of thymol and essential oils. Since
the particles made of completely natural ingredients
displayed sustainable antibacterial activity over
10 days, these can be attractive as active food pack-
aging material for prolonging the food shelf life.
Figure 5 Antimicrobial activity of samples A, B, C, D and E
against E. coli expressed in bacterial growth inhibition %, and the
data are processed using ANOVA one-way statistical analysis and
are significant at p value\ 0.001.
J Mater Sci
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results has received
funding from the Department of Science and Tech-
nology (DST), India, under Extramural Research
Grant: SB/S3/CE/068/2015, and IIT Delhi, New
Delhi, India.
Electronic supplementary material: The online
version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s108
53-019-03593-7) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest Authors have no conflict of
interest to declare.
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