Innovative Applications of Cold Plasma Technology in the Food Industry

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Engineering and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 September 2023) | Viewed by 3961

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Cesena, Italy
Interests: non-thermal processing; emerging technologies; food quality; food shelf life
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Interests: cold atmospheric pressure plasma; plasma chemistry; antimicrobial effect of plasma; plasma-activated liquids
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As the demand for high-quality foods with fresh-like characteristics increases, intense research efforts have been devoted to the development of new processing technologies to obtain safe products with sensory and nutritional attributes similar to those of fresh product as an alternative to traditional processing technologies based on the use of thermal treatments or of chemicals.

In this scenario, cold plasma technology has shown promising results as a non-thermal technology, recently attracting considerable attention from food scientists and researchers. Applications in the food processing sector involve the sanitation of solid and liquid foods and of food packaging materials, inactivation of enzymes, inactivation of molds and mycotoxins, and inactivation of foodborne viruses and degradation of pesticides. However, for the industrial implementation of this technology, there are still many aspects that need further investigation. Moreover, recent trends involve the use of plasma for food and food ingredient functionalization, in-package treatment, allergen removal, etc.

This Special Issue aims to collect original works investigating the impact of cold plasma and plasma-activated liquids in the food sector, focusing on important aspects related to the industrial scale (toxicity studies, product shelf-life, scaling up, and economic evaluation) and innovative applications.

Dr. Silvia Tappi
Dr. Romolo Laurita
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • non-thermal processing
  • cold plasma
  • food safety
  • food quality
  • plasma-activated water

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2706 KiB  
Article
Survival of Listeria Strains and Shelf Life Determination of Fresh Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum) Treated with Cold Atmospheric Plasma
by Anibal A. Concha-Meyer, Alexandra González-Esparza, Patrick J. Cullen, Felipe Veloso, Mario Favre, Julio C. Valenzuela, Lorena Toloza and Brendan A. Niemira
Foods 2024, 13(6), 822; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13060822 - 07 Mar 2024
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Abstract
Fresh blueberries are delicate, hand-picked, packaged, and refrigerated fruits vulnerable to spoilage and contamination. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a promising antimicrobial technology; therefore, this study evaluated the CAP treatment effect on acid-tolerant Listeria innocua and Listeria monocytogenes and evaluated changes in the [...] Read more.
Fresh blueberries are delicate, hand-picked, packaged, and refrigerated fruits vulnerable to spoilage and contamination. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is a promising antimicrobial technology; therefore, this study evaluated the CAP treatment effect on acid-tolerant Listeria innocua and Listeria monocytogenes and evaluated changes in the quality of the treated fruit. Samples were spot-inoculated with pH 5.5 and 6.0 acid-adapted Listeria species. Samples were treated with gliding arc CAP for 15, 30, 45, and 60 s and evaluated after 0, 1, 4, 7, and 11 days of storage at 4 °C and 90% humidity for the following quality parameters: total aerobic counts, yeast and molds, texture, color, soluble solids, pH, and titratable acidity. CAP treatments of 30 s and over demonstrated significant reductions in pathogens under both the resistant strain and pH conditions. Sixty-second CAP achieved a 0.54 Log CFU g−1 reduction in L. monocytogenes (pH 5.5) and 0.28 Log CFU g−1 for L. monocytogenes (pH 6.0). Yeast and mold counts on day 0 showed statistically significant reductions after 30, 45, and 60 s CAP with an average 2.34 Log CFU g−1 reduction when compared to non-CAP treated samples. Quality parameters did not show major significant differences among CAP treatments during shelf life. CAP is an effective antimicrobial treatment that does not significantly affect fruit quality. Full article
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15 pages, 1599 KiB  
Article
Using TRIS-Buffered Plasma-Activated Water to Reduce Pathogenic Microorganisms on Poultry Carcasses with Evaluation of Physicochemical and Sensory Parameters
by Vanessa Große-Peclum, Lisa Siekmann, Carsten Krischek, Georg Avramidis, Christian Ochs, Wolfgang Viöl and Madeleine Plötz
Foods 2023, 12(5), 1113; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12051113 - 06 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1419
Abstract
Foodborne diseases are mainly caused by the contamination of meat or meat products with pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, we first investigated the in vitro application of TRIS-buffered plasma-activated water (Tb-PAW) on Campylobacter (C.) jejuni and Escherichia (E.) coli, with a reduction of approx. [...] Read more.
Foodborne diseases are mainly caused by the contamination of meat or meat products with pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, we first investigated the in vitro application of TRIS-buffered plasma-activated water (Tb-PAW) on Campylobacter (C.) jejuni and Escherichia (E.) coli, with a reduction of approx. 4.20 ± 0.68 and 5.12 ± 0.46 log10 CFU/mL. Furthermore, chicken and duck thighs (inoculated with C. jejuni or E. coli) and breasts (with natural microflora) with skin were sprayed with Tb-PAW. Samples were packed under a modified atmosphere and stored at 4 °C for 0, 7, and 14 days. The Tb-PAW could reduce C. jejuni on days 7 and 14 (chicken) and E. coli on day 14 (duck) significantly. In chicken, there were no significant differences in sensory, pH-value, color, and antioxidant activity, but %OxyMb levels decreased, whereas %MetMb and %DeoMb increased. In duck, we observed slight differences in pH-value, color, and myoglobin redox forms for the Tb-PAW, which were not perceived by the sensory test persons. With only slight differences in product quality, its application as a spray treatment may be a useful method to reduce C. jejuni and E. coli on chicken and duck carcasses. Full article
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14 pages, 1456 KiB  
Article
Bactericidal Effect of Underwater Plasma Treatment on Waste Brine from Kimchi Production Process and the Evaluation of Reusability of Plasma-Treated Waste Brine in Salting Kimchi Cabbage
by Junghyun Lim, Eun Jeong Hong, Seong Bong Kim, Mi-Ai Lee and Seungmin Ryu
Foods 2023, 12(4), 728; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12040728 - 07 Feb 2023
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Abstract
Recycling waste brine from the Kimchi production process is an important environmental and industry issue. We applied an underwater plasma to reduce food-borne pathogens in the waste brine. The capillary electrodes supplied by alternating current (AC) bi-polar pulsed power were applied to treat [...] Read more.
Recycling waste brine from the Kimchi production process is an important environmental and industry issue. We applied an underwater plasma to reduce food-borne pathogens in the waste brine. The capillary electrodes supplied by alternating current (AC) bi-polar pulsed power were applied to treat 100 L of waste brine. The inactivation efficacy was analyzed using four different agars (Tryptic Soy Agar (TSA), Marine agar (MA), de Man Rogosa Sharpe Agar (MRS), and Yeast Extract–Peptone–Dextrose (YPD), respectively. The microbial population was reduced linearly with treatment time, irrespective of culturing medium. The inactivation followed the log-linear model (R2: 0.96–0.99). The reusability of plasma-treated waste brine (PTWB) was determined by five parameters (salinity, pH, acidity, reducing sugar, and the population of microorganisms) of salted Kimchi cabbage, and they were compared with newly made brine (NMB) and waste brine (WB), respectively. The results showed that the quality of salted Kimchi cabbage prepared by PTWB was not significantly different from that of NMB, indicating that the underwater plasma treatment is feasible to reuse waste brine in the salting process of Kimchi production. Full article
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