A novel alginate-based coating with thymol nanocarriers to combat spoilage in chicken breast: Comparing the performance of nanoemulsions and nano lipid carriers

This study introduces the development of alginate-based edible coatings (Alg) functionalized with thymol-loaded nanocarriers: β-cyclodextrin inclusion complexes (CD), nanoemulsions (NE), and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC). The droplet sizes and zeta potential of CD, NLC, and NE were (210 nm and -21 mV), (170 nm and -23 mV), and (110 nm and -26 mV), respectively. The encapsulation efficiency (EE) of thymol was estimated at 85% for the CD system, 90% for NLCs, and 97% for NE. Alg-NLC (12.23 mg TVB-N/100 g) and Alg-NE (12.37 mg TVB-N/100 g) effectively suppressed the formation of volatile nitrogen bases more than Alg-thymol (17.46 mg TVB-N/100 g) and Alg-CD (15.23 mg TVB-N/100 g) on day 7. The thiobarbituric acid values of samples treated with Alg-NLC (1.2 mg MDA/kg) and Alg-NE (1.3 mg MDA/kg) showed no significant difference (P > 0.05). The NE formulation exhibited a faster thymol release than the NLC and CD systems. This rapid release may have contributed to the pronounced antimicrobial activity of Alg-NE, whereas the more gradual release from NLC could support sustained thymol availability during storage. Consistent with these differences, Alg-NE and Alg-NLC effectively limited the growth of total viable bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae , yeast, and mold.