USE OF NON-

THERMAL
ATMOSPHERIC
PRESSURE
PLASMA IN
FOODS

Marcela Jarpa
PhD student
Introduction
Food preservation
Food quality :
effective
unacceptable changes
Increasing consumer demand for fresh-
like foods
What is plasma?
How to produce a plasma?
Types of plasmas
Thermal plasma
gas at high pressure: 10
5
Pa and high
electron temperatures:10
4
K and higher.
Non-thermal plasma
Less than 10
5
Pa and at ambient
temperature.
Current application of plasma
in food
Package coating
Food safety
Inactivation of vegetative cells
(gram-negative and gram-positive
bacteria), yeast, fungi, biofilm formers, and
endospores.
Presence of UV emitting species, charged
particles, and free radicals (highly reactive
oxygen species)
Mechanism of food sterilization
Affect outer bacterial membrane lipids by
causing the formation of unsaturated fatty
acid peroxides.
Oxidation of amino acid and nucleic acids
Ozone generated from some gases like
Argon.

Mangos, apples, melon, almonds, lettuce,
bacon, chicken, sliced ham, and cheese.
Plasma effect on food
compounds
(Grzegorzewski et al, 2011)
Effect of plasma treatment (35 W, Ar), heating (323 K), and UV (254
nm) on V. locusta chemical composition: Chlorogenic acid (black),
caffeic acid (horizontal stripes), protocatechuic acid (white), luteolin
(diagonal stripes), diosmetin (grey).
Plasma effect on food
compounds
A
SEM micrographs of lettuce v. locusta surfaces: untreated leaf (A), surface after PJ exposure (20W, 20
s) (B), and surface after PJ exposure (20 W, 60 s) (C).
B
C
Future work
There is an urgent necessity of further
researches related to the effect of plasma
treatment on food compounds before
establish non-thermal atmospheric
plasma as a safe and harmless technique.
Studies in interactions with other
compounds as lipids, proteins and other
components are necessary in order to
determine impact on functional
properties.


References
A Level Physics Notes: Plasma A Fourth State of Matter. n.d.
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Technology, 2011: 2285-2289.
Kim, Binna, Hyejeong Yun, Samooel Jung, Yeonkook Jung, and Heesoo Jung. "Effect of
atmospheric pressure plasma on inactivation of pathogens inoculated onto bacon using
two different gas compositions." Food Microbiology, 2011 : 9-13.
Lee, Hyun Jung, Heesoo Jung, Wonho Choe, Jun Sang Ham, Jun Heon Lee, and Cheorun Jo.
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