Foodborne Pathogen Inactivation by Cold Plasma Reactive Species

Abstract

Cold plasma is implemented in the food industry for protecting the agricultural product from foodborne pathogens. In this case, dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma pen (DBD-CP) was applied to study its efficiency in inactivation of bacterial on oyster mushroom. The surface of the fresh oyster mushroom was treated with 5 kV of AC voltage with variable of treatment times (0-4 min). Data showed sufficient energy by DBD-CPP has inactivated the existence of bacterial on the oyster mushroom surface with undetectable of bacteria colony. The reactive species generated by cold plasma undoubtedly irreversibly damage the deoxyribonucleic acid, ribonucleic acid, and enzymes of gram bacterial, which eventually causes cell death. Above all, an understanding of the microorganism cell structure, the food surface types, and roughness is an essential in manipulating cold plasma processing parameters to achieve the maximum rate of microbial inactivation.