Experimental investigation on food decontamination by low-temperature dielectric barrier discharge (LT-DBD) plasma: application to bread-born mold

Abstract

The microbial inactivation ability of low temperature plasma treatment generated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) on bread-born mold (black bread mold) is investigated. It is shown that the plasma treatment can effectively decrease the mold growth rate. The longer plasma treatment time is, the more mold spores are inactivated. On the other hand, plasma treatment has not concrete effects on growth initiation time of bread-born mold. The effects of mold locations in DBD device (between the electrodes or out of electrodes gap), use of transparent barrier, electrode materials, and carrier gas on inactivation capability of DBD on bread-born molds has been analyzed. The possibility of different microbial inactivation mechanisms of plasma treatment on bread-born mold is surveyed, and a rough estimate of their shares is presented. In the best conditions, the 82% decrement in mold growth is achieved by only 5 s plasma treatment.