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<article article-type="research-article" dtd-version="1.0" xml:lang="en"
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    <front>
        <journal-meta>
            <journal-id journal-id-type="issn">0973-7510</journal-id>
            <journal-title-group>
                <journal-title>Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology</journal-title>
            </journal-title-group>
            <issn pub-type="epub">2581-690X</issn>
            <publisher>
                <publisher-name>DR. M.N. Khan</publisher-name>
            </publisher>
        </journal-meta>
        <article-meta>
            <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.22207/JPAM.20.2.31</article-id>
            <title-group>
                <article-title>Sustainable, Biocompatible PHB-coconut Oil Bioplastic Blends with Improved Physico-mechanical Properties and Dual Antimicrobial Functionality</article-title>
            </title-group>
            <contrib-group>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                       <surname>Kamat</surname>
                        <given-names>Shalmali</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-2"/>
                </contrib>

				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                       <surname>Shivakumar</surname>
                        <given-names>Srividya</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-3"/>
                </contrib>
				
			</contrib-group>


          <aff id="aff-1">Department of Microbiology, School of Sciences, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.</aff>
          <aff id="aff-2">Department of Microbiology, School of Life Sciences, St Joseph’s University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.</aff>
          <aff id="aff-3">School of Allied Healthcare and Sciences, Whitefield, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.</aff>



            <pub-date publication-format="electronic" date-type="pub" iso-8601-date="2026-05-18">
                <day>18</day>
				<month>05</month>
                <year>2026</year>
            </pub-date>
            <volume></volume>
            <issue></issue>
            <fpage></fpage>
            <lpage></lpage>
            <permissions>
                <copyright-statement>Copyright &#x00A9; 2026 The Author(s)</copyright-statement>
                <copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
                <license license-type="open-access"
                    xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
                    <license-p>This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.<uri
					xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
                            >https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</uri></license-p>
                </license>
            </permissions>
            <self-uri xlink:href="https://microbiologyjournal.org/sustainable-biocompatible-phb-coconut-oil-bioplastic-blends-with-improved-physico-mechanical-properties-and-dual-antimicrobial-functionality/"/>
            <abstract>
                <p>PHB (Polyhydroxybutyrate) is a non-toxic and biodegradable microbial biopolymer with thermoplastic-like properties with growing relevance for biomedical applications. However, PHB is inherently brittle, and requires a plasticizer to enhance mechanical performance. In the present study, a fully natural biopolymer with anti-quorum sensing and bactericidal properties was synthesized and evaluated for its physico-mechanical properties and biocompatibility. PHB films were fabricated with Coconut oil (CO) as plasticizer resulting in substantial improvement in flexibility, with elongation at break increasing from 1.713% in pure PHB films to over 8% in the CO plasticized blend. To confer bioactive property, Thyme essential oil (TEO) was incorporated, which also improved wettability, protein adsorption, and resulted in average surface roughness of 338.215 nm. This blend showed enhanced biocompatibility with L929 fibroblasts. In vitro TEO release studies revealed initial burst release followed by sustained release over 48 hours indicating an early and prolonged antimicrobial activity. The TEO blend showed effective bactericidal and anti-quorum activity with Chromobacterium violaceum confirming preservation of bioactivity during blend fabrication. The sustainable, antimicrobial biopolymer formulated in this work presents a promising candidate for development of eco-friendly biomedical products such as sutures, wound dressings and scaffolds.</p>
		</abstract>
		<kwd-group>
        <title>Keywords</title>
        <kwd>Polyhydroxy Butyrate (PHB)</kwd>
        <kwd>Coconut Oil</kwd>
        <kwd>Bioactive Biopolymer</kwd>
        <kwd>Thyme Essential Oil</kwd>
        <kwd>Anti-quorum</kwd>
		</kwd-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
</article>
