Development of Decontamination Treatment Techniques for Dry Powder Foods by Atmospheric-Pressure Nonequilibrium DC Pulse Discharge Plasma Jet

Abstract

Dry powder food ingredients imported to Japan contain large amounts of viable bacteria and coliform bacteria, and we need a simple, low-cost, dry nonthermal decontamination method without spoiling nutrients, color, fragrance, and flavor. In this study, it is shown that the decontamination performance against viable bacteria and coliform bacteria is proportional to the plasma irradiation time when OH and O3 radicals are incident on the dry powder food ingredients placed in an atmospheric-pressure nonequilibrium DC pulse discharge Ar + O2 mixture gas plasma jet. Our study revealed that there is a correlation between the plasma irradiation time and DC pulse frequency increase and the decontamination effect on the general bacterial count.