The most likely route to enhancing activity lies with optimizing biocide formulations to ensure maximum availability of the active moiety particularly important in situations of pHdependency or poor water solubility.
ENHANCING ACTIVITY
Mention has already been made of the use of permeabilizing chelators to enhance
the penetration of biocides to their target. Much effort has also been expended
in the search for synergistic combinations of biocides which, when added
together, will greatly amplify the bactericidal effect. While theoretically possible,
and potentially predictable from mechanism of action studies, in practice this
effect is elusive; combinations of phenylmercuric acetate with benzalkonium
chloride, lipophilic weak acids with fatty alcohols, and chlorocresol with
phenylethanol have been reported. The most likely route to enhancing activity
lies with optimizing biocide formulations to ensure maximum availability of the
active moiety—particularly important in situations of pHdependency or poor
water solubility. In the area of pharmaceutical and cosmetic preservation,
constructive use of formulation ingredients, each with some intrinsic
antimicrobial activity, has successfully built on the activity of the original
preservative agent to create a cumulative bactericidal effect, an approach
called ‘hurdle technology’.
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