Plant-based natural saponins for Escherichia coli surface hygiene management

Abstract

Cleaning the surfaces enables reducing microbial populations and consequently the risk of food contamination. The aim of this research was to study the potential of natural extracts from soap nuts, quillaja bark, and horse chestnuts for the reduction of Escherichia coli on glass surfaces. Analogous to that, we tested the efficacy of standard saponins as the active components in the plants mentioned above. The results show that the numbers of bacteria cells are decreased by increasing concentrations of all cleaning product, except for quillaja standard saponin (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the findings indicate that natural plant extracts have greater efficacy than standard saponins do. In particular, quillaja bark extract shows the potential to reduce bacterial populations by up to 66%. Moreover, the research also demonstrates that natural plant extracts have excellent abilities to reduce water surface tension (22 mN/m for soap nut extract) and emulsification potential (74 for quillaja bark extract). Natural plant extracts are inexpensive, biodegradable, and residues are less toxic than conventional ones. The evidence of this study suggests that natural plant extracts are efficient against attached E. coli cells on the glass surface and are a good candidate for surface hygiene management.