Eco-friendly curcumin-loaded nanostructured lipid carrier as an efficient antibacterial for hospital wastewater treatment

Abstract

Abstract The contamination of wastewater with a wide variety of chemical, microbiological and toxic substances is an area of increasing environmental concern. The present study aimed to introduce a new strategy to remove a variety of bacterial pathogens from hospital wastewater. Eco-friendly curcumin loaded nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC-curcumin) were prepared by the hot high-speed homogenization method. The average particle size and zeta potential of NLC-curcumin were 137.9 ± 3.21 nm and -23.36 ± 3.5 mV, respectively. The nanoparticles were also characterized in terms of morphology, thermal behavior, antioxidant properties, and infrared spectroscopy. In vitro antibacterial effects of the NLC-curcumin and free-curcumin was studied by Turbidity assay in Luria–Bertani (LB) media on the standard and wild bacteria strains. The antibacterial effect of NLC-curcumin on bacteria was also studied by the SEM images. Analysis of colony forming unit per milliliter (CFU/ml) was used to evaluate the potential of NLC-curcumin on the bacteria growth decrease in the real environment of the hospital wastewater. The findings reveal that NLC-curcumin (0.125 μ M) in Mueller–Hinton agar media clearly reduces the percentage of the wild bacteria strains in autoclaved wastewater at 37 °C. For the original hospital wastewater treatment, NLC-Curcumin (0.125 μ M) significantly decreased the percentage of the microbial total count at 25 °C.