Aim
To study the impact of incorporating micro‐nano‐bubbles (MNBs) in commonly used food antimicrobials (AMs) against Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EC) and Listeria monocytogenes (LM).
Methods and Results
Air, carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2) were used to incorporate MNBs in city water. AM solution (with or without MNBs) of 9 ml was individually taken into sterile test tubes and mixed with 1 ml of inoculum grown in brain heart infusion (BHI) broth to get the net AM concentrations of 28·4 ppm peracetic acid (PAA), 200 ppm chlorine (Cl2), 5·4% citric acid (CA) and 4·5% lactic acid (LA). After treatment time of 1·5 and 3·0 min, 1 ml of sample was neutralized using Dey–Engley neutralizing broth and plated on BHI agar. For EC, Cl2‐CO2 solutions resulted in significantly greater log reductions (5·2 logs) compared to that of Cl2 solutions without MNBs (3·8 logs). For LM, PAA‐CO2 solutions resulted in significantly greater log reductions (4·4 logs) compared to that of PAA solutions without MNBs (1·7 logs).
Conclusions
This study demonstrated that the efficacy of Cl2 and PAA AM solutions could be increased by incorporating CO2‐MNBs against EC and LM in microbiological growth medium.
Significance and Impact of the Study
Incorporation of CO2‐MNBs in AM solutions could increase the efficacy of AMs against pathogens on/in food matrices, which should be tested in future research.