Antibacterial Properties of Cymbopogon martinii essential Oil against Bacillus subtillis food industry pathogen

Essential oils have great potential in the field of food industry as they effectively prevent the presence of several bacterial and fungal pathogens. Essential oils are complex volatile compounds, synthesized naturally in different plant parts during the process of secondary metabolism. The main goal of this work was to made a qualitative evaluation antibacterial properties of 24 chemotyped essential oils against the growth of Bacillus subtillis. This gram positive bacteria is responsible for "rope" disease in bread preservation processes.

The study was carried out using disk-diffusion in agar method. Biological activity is observed in five essential oils from Cymbopogon Martinii var. motia, Thymus vulgaris QT Linanol, Thymus satureioides, Mentha piperita and Eugenia caryophyllus. The first three have in common some terpenic derivatives: Geraniol, Linalool and Carvacrol.

The Cymbopogon Martinii essential oil, is one of the botanicals with the highest geraniol content (up to 93%), showed more activity antimicrobial.

A contributing role of this knowledge could be the design of Cymbopogon Martinii essential oil formula, can be used in bakery industry as preservative, such as nano-encapsulation for bakery doughs, active packaging of baked products or surface disinfectants.