Low-Temperature Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma in Microbial Decontamination and Meat Technology. A Review

Abstract

The development of plasma technology is associated with the unique features of non-equilibrium low-temperature plasma: high electron energy and high concentration of chemically active excited and charged particles at low gas temperature, which allows to process thermolabile materials and biological objects in gentle conditions when high temperatures are not required. The biological effects of low-temperature plasma exposure are considered. It was established that during plasma treatment, a combined effect on cells and tissues of living systems from UV radiation, ions and chemically active particles occurs. Depending on the plasma type, the significance of each of the listed mechanisms for increasing the effectiveness of plasma treatment may vary. However, all these mechanisms interact with each other and have a synergistic effect. It was shown that the conducted studies confirm the ability of low-temperature plasma to inactivate pathogenic microorganisms upon contact with biological objects and foods. The results of the studies are presented, the purpose of which was to study the effect of plasma treatment on nitrite concentration in the water treated by this method and to assess the possibility of its use as a source of nitrite when curing meat products.

Non-thermal Plasma Treatment of ESKAPE Pathogens: A Review

“…Treatment of suspension cells was described in Gabriel et al (2016) , where a 5 log decrease was observed after 25 min of exposure. The efficiency of decontamination of agar plates was studied in several papers ( Justan et al, 2014 ; Metelmann et al, 2018 ; Gorbunova, 2019 ; Lee et al, 2019 ), where inhibition zones were observed from several seconds to 10 min of exposure depending on the NTP source and arrangement. In addition, a more than 3 log decrease of viable cells on inoculated steel plates was observed after 20 min NTP exposure in the study by Lis et al (2018) .…”

“… Gorbunova (2019) described the possibilities of using NTP in the food industry for processing and preserving meat products. A collection of bacterial strains was exposed in model experiments, where K. pneumoniae was inhibited after a 10-min exposure by 36%.…”

Design and Characterization of Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Arrays for Killing and Removing Bacterial Biofilms

“…Cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAP) has found novel applications in medicine, food processing, material processing and microelectronics industries [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”