Atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) treatment improved in-package shelf-life of strawberry fruit.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) treatment on the microbial inactivation, physicochemical properties, and shelf-life of strawberry fruit with its extended in-package storage at room (25°C) and refrigerated (4°C) temperature. ACP treatment of 10, 15 and 30min was studied on strawberry fruit using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at 60kV with an input voltage of 260V at 50Hz. The shelf-life of ACP treated strawberry was extended to 5days at 25°C and 9days at 4°C in sealed ACP package. However, non-treated packaged strawberry was degraded in 2days. ACP treatment of 15min resulted in 2 log reduction of microbial load and enhanced the concentration of chlorogenic acid, hyprin, phloretin, vanillin, gallic acid, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde and rutin during in-package storage of 5day (~ 120h) at 25°C with respect to control (p < 0.05). In addition, ACP treatment of 15min at 60kV was also found to increase the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity. However, total soluble solids, pH and moisture were not affected with ACP treatment (p > 0.05). Therefore, ACP treatment of 15min with in-package storage of 5days (~ 120h) was found to be advantageous for increasing the shelf-life and functional quality of strawberry fruit.