Colloidal Particles as Antimicrobial Carrier Systems
The objective of this thesis is to develop a method by which antimicrobials are delivered into a food product as a concentrated dose to the specific area in which the microorganism is growing without interference from the food matrix. More specifically, we plan to achieve this by delivering the antimicrobials nisin and lysozyme attached to nanoparticles and emulsion droplets. We hypothesize that (a) the attachment to a delivery vessel may increase the local concentration of the antimicrobial in the vicinity of the bacterial pathogens and (b) that the size and charge of the nanoparticle following attachment of the antimicrobials will be critical to its efficacy against pathogens. This thesis is designed to test this hypothesis using silver nanoparticles with well defined sizes and surface chemistry that allow control over the loading of the particle and oil droplets to which nisin is a secondary layer attached to pork gelatin which acts as the primary emulsifier.
School:University of Massachusetts Amherst
School Location:USA - Massachusetts
Source Type:Master's Thesis
Keywords:antimicrobial listeria e coli delivery system food science
Date of Publication:01/01/2007