A Review on Non-thermal Atmospheric Plasma for Food Preservation: Mode of Action, Determinants of Effectiveness, and Applications

Non-thermal Atmospheric Plasma (NTAP) is a cutting-edge technology which has gained much attention during the last decade in the food-processing sector as a promising technology for food preservation and maintenance of food safety, with minimal impact on the quality attributes of foods, thanks to it...

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Published inFrontiers in microbiology Vol. 10; p. 622
Main Authors López, Mercedes, Calvo, Tamara, Prieto, Miguel, Múgica-Vidal, Rodolfo, Muro-Fraguas, Ignacio, Alba-Elías, Fernando, Alvarez-Ordóñez, Avelino
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 02.04.2019
Subjects
food processing
food quality
food safety
microbial inactivation
Microbiology
plasma
food safety
microbial inactivation
plasma
food quality
food processing
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Summary:Non-thermal Atmospheric Plasma (NTAP) is a cutting-edge technology which has gained much attention during the last decade in the food-processing sector as a promising technology for food preservation and maintenance of food safety, with minimal impact on the quality attributes of foods, thanks to its effectiveness in microbial inactivation, including of pathogens, spoilage fungi and bacterial spores, simple design, ease of use, cost-effective operation, short treatment times, lack of toxic effects, and significant reduction of water consumption. This review article provides a general overview of the principles of operation and applications of NTAP in the agri-food sector. In particular, the numerous studies carried out in the last decade aimed at deciphering the influence of different environmental factors and processing parameters on the microbial inactivation attained are discussed. In addition, this review also considers some important studies aimed at elucidating the complex mechanism of microbial inactivation by NTAP. Finally, other potential applications of NTAP in the agri-food sector, apart from food decontamination, are briefly described, and some limitations for the immediate industrial implementation of NTAP are discussed (e.g., impact on the nutritional and sensory quality of treated foods; knowledge on the plasma components and reactive species responsible for the antimicrobial activity; possible toxicity of some of the chemical species generated; scale-up by designing fit-for-purpose equipment).
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Edited by: Juan Aguirre, Universidad de Chile, Chile
This article was submitted to Food Microbiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology
Reviewed by: Marcello Trevisani, University of Bologna, Italy; Javier Raso, University of Zaragoza, Spain
ISSN:1664-302X
1664-302X
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2019.00622