Retaining the ‘essence’ of essential oil: Nanoemulsions of citral and carvone reduced oil loss and enhanced antibacterial efficacy via bacterial membrane perturbation

Essential oils (EO), which can be extracted from different edible, therapeutic and herbal plants, have been well known as natural antimicrobial additives. However, it is usually hard to attain high efficacy of these EOs, when are used in combinations for the control foodborne microbes, because their low solubility water interactive binding. Here, we report an optimized oil-in-water (o/w) nanoemulsification process citral carvone generated mean droplet size 11–19 nm. It was found that nature surfactant viz., Brij-58 vs leaf extract Lantana camara (LC) plays crucial role determining overall stability droplets. The screened nanoemulsions (NEs), stored long duration, showed minimal decrease oil content with retention antioxidant activity. prepared NEs documented enhanced antibacterial activity compared pure whereas higher degree killing observed towards Pseudomonas aeruginosa. also both bacteria on wound dressing cotton gauze bandages (GB). outcome present study may development safe biocompatible agents.