Chemical, physical and physiological quality attributes of fruit and vegetables induced by cold plasma treatment: Mechanisms and application advances

Abstract

In recent years, applications of cold plasma treatments have shown high efficiency in sterilization of fresh fruit and vegetables. With encouraging results, development of this technique focuses on influences of cold plasma on the quality attributes of these fresh produce. More studies found that the quality attributes are maintained in an acceptable range or can even be improved under certain plasma treatment conditions. This review provides an overview of the multiple effects of cold plasma on the fresh produce, in terms of physical, chemical and physiological aspects. Besides, the possible mechanisms of how plasma influences these quality attributes is elaborated, which is useful for further modification and improvement of the plasma technology, so that quality enhancement and shelf life extension can be achieved. Future trends in the development of cold plasma technology are also presented. Cold plasma treatment is a potential technology for treating fresh fruit and vegetables to enhance their quality and extend their shelf life. However, knowledge of the effects of cold plasma on the quality changes of fresh fruit and vegetables is still limited. Therefore, there is a need for future studies to understand the mechanisms of plasma effects on controlling the interactions between plasma and food products in order to realize the early adoption of the technology to the food industry.

Keywords:

• Cold plasma
• quality attributes
• fruit and vegetables
• nonthermal processing
• enzymes

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Fishery Development Project of Guangdong (2019B9) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2017A030310558, 2018A030313701) for the support. This research was also supported by the S&T Project of Guangzhou (201804010469), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019MS094), the S&T Project of Guangdong Province (2018D1002, 2017B020207002), the Common Technical Innovation Team of Guangdong Province on Preservation and Logistics of Agricultural Products (2019KJ145), and the Innovation Centre of Guangdong Province for Modern Agricultural Science and Technology on Intelligent Sensing and Precision Control of Agricultural Product Qualities.