Preparation and characterization of Mentha nanoemulsions using gelatin- polysorbate 20 based multicomponent stabilizer system as food Preservative

In this work, the mentha essential oil nanoemulsions were prepared using Tween 20-gelatin multicomponent stabilizing system as food preservative. The response surface methodology (RSM) was applied in order to study the main and interaction effects of the stabilizer components’ proportions, namely, Tween 20 (0-10 gr) and gelatin (0-10 gr) on physicochemical characteristics of obtained nanoemulsions such as average particle size, polydispersity index (PDI), turbidity, conductivity and ztea potential. It was resulted that the response-surface models were significantly (p < 0.05) fitted for studied response variables and could precisely predict all response changes with high coefficients of determination (R2 > 0.90). The overall optimum region with minimum z-average, PDI, turbidity, conductivity and maximum range of zeta-potential was achieved at 8 gr of tween 20 and 2 gr of Gelatin. The optimum mentha essential oil nanoemulsion showed good antibacterial activity against both E. coli and S. areus, alone as well as incorporated in edible coating formulations. The maximum inhibition zone was observed using 1% carboxymethyl, 0.5% glycerol and 5% optimized nanoemulsion.