Development, characterization and antimicrobial activity of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polysaccharides capsules...

This work describes the production of polysaccharide multilayer capsules to control the release of Eugenol (Eug) and enabling its use as an antimicrobial agent. For this propose, oil-in-water nanoemulsions of sodium dodecyl sulfate were coated with alternating depositions of chitosan and carboxymethylcellulose using the Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technique, resulting in capsules containing 1-5 layers. The average size ranged from 188 ± 30 (LbL₁) to 1415 ± 517 nm (LbL₅). The maximum incorporation efficiency was 70.8 ± 2.7 % for Eug-SDS-LbL₁. The initial burst releases decreased in proportion to the increase in the number of polysaccharide layers (22.3 ± 3.1 %-12.8 ± 1.6 %), and are influenced by the pH. These systems exhibited antifungal activity against Aspergillus niger, Trichoderma sp, Gliocladium sp, and Candida albicans, and Eug minimum inhibitory concentrations were lower as compared to those of the free agent. Therefore, these capsules represent promising antifungal materials for application in various fields.