The Potential Use of Essential Oil Nanoemulsion as a Novel Alternative to Antibiotics in Poultry Production-A Review

Antibiotics are commonly used due to their antimicrobial activity and widely used for promoting growth, preventing diseases or therapy in poultry. The misuse of antibiotics in livestock production induces resistant bacteria into the environment. Therefore, the need to develop alternatives to antibiotics become increasingly important, that protect and improve global public health. The phytobiotics especially essential oils are known to have antimicrobial activity, thus potentially as an alternative candidate to antibiotics. The volatile bioactive components contained in the essential oils, makes it possess that antimicrobial activity, yet the volatile bioactive components also become a limiting factor in essential oils application. Nanoemulsions carrier systems can be a solution to overcome that limiting factor. Nanoemulsion is increasingly being utilized for improving the bioavailability of certain types of volatile components which most of them are lipophilic substances. In this review, we are going to discuss the non-antibiotic alternative of plant essential oils, including current research in poultry nutrition, and the potential application of essential oils using nanoemulsion as an alternative candidate to antibiotics in poultry production.