Antimicrobial activity of essential oils: A Review

Of late, there is a rapidly growing demand of environmental friendly, safe preservatives for food preservation because some of the traditional food preservation techniques have undesirable effects on the quality of food products and the artificial preservatives are increasingly being banned. This has necessitated the need to exploit the natural biological substances from plants which are safe and are capable of preserving the food products. Antimicrobial is a chemical compound present in or added to food, food packaging, food contact surfaces or food processing environments that inhibits the growth of or inactivate pathogenic or spoilage causing microorganisms. Many plants contain compounds that have some antimicrobial activity, collectively referred to as “green chemicals”. Volatile oils of many plants are known to have antimicrobial activity, which could probably act as chemical defense against plant pathogen. Among the essential oil components, the volatiles monoterpenes and aldehydes have attracted the recent interest of researchers and food industries for their use as food preservatives. Various herbs and spices have been found to have broad spectrum activity against a number of bacteria and fungi, hence showing their potential for their use in foods as antimicrobial additives. In this article, efforts have been made to present the information pertaining to various plant species especially essential oils having some antimicrobial compound, their antimicrobial activity, mode of action, application in food preservation and other related aspects.