Abstract
The purpose of the present study is to enhance the antimicrobial activity of chitosan. For this reason, thin films of chitosan incorporated with different concentrations of Jojoba liquid wax (JLW) were prepared by using the casting technique. The agar disc diffusion method was used to investigate the antimicrobial activity of the films against two different microorganisms namely Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillis subtilis. The results indicated that as the concentration of JLW increases the antimicrobial activity for S. aureus and B. subtilis increases. Moreover, it is found that the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for both systems decrease by increasing the amount of the antimicrobial agent Jojoba with chitosan. In conclusion, the data obtained reveal that chitosan has a great potential to improve its antimicrobial activity by incorporating with antimicrobial agent. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.