Essential Oils of Plants as Biocides against Microorganisms Isolated from Cuban and Argentine Documentary Heritage

Abstract

With many important artistic works and documents made of paper, and thus susceptible to biodeterioration by fungi, research is required in an effort to replace toxic chemical products with other more benign ones. Natural products obtained from plants with biocidal activity represent an alternative and useful source in the control of biodeterioration, without negative environmental impacts. In this work, we studied the antimicrobial activity of seven essential oils against microorganisms associated with the biodeterioration of documentary heritage. The essential oils were obtained by steam distillation. The antimicrobial activity was analyzed using the agar diffusion method against 4 strain of fungi and 6 bacterial strains isolated from repositories air and documents of the National Archive of the Republic of Cuba and the Historical Archive of the Museum of La Plata, Argentine. Anise, garlic and oregano oils showed the best antifungal activity at all concentrations studied while sweet orange and laurel oils were ineffective against fungi. Clove, garlic and oregano oils showed the highest antibacterial activity at 25% against Enterobacter agglomerans and Streptomyces sp. while only clove and oregano oils were effective against Bacillus sp. at all concentrations studied. Of the seven essential oils studied, two (anise and clove) were highly effective against airborne fungi tested; regardless of clove oil could also stop the fungal sporulation as oregano oil. This study has an important implication for the possible use of the natural products from plants in the control of biodeterioration of documentary heritage.