Bactericidal effects of a low-temperature acidic electrolyzed water on quantitative suspension, packaging and contact surface in food cold chain

Abstract

The research and development of high-efficiency low-temperature disinfection technology in all aspects of cold-chain food has begun to receive attention. This paper aims to develop low temperature acidic electrolyzed water (LT-AEW) disinfectant. The anti-freezing temperature, disinfection efficiency and practical application effect were evaluated in detail. The results had shown that the freezing point of AEW can be reduced to −18 °C by adding 25% CaCl2, 20% NaCl, 30% ethylene glycol (EG) and 35% propylene glycol (PG). At the low temperature (−1, −10 and −18 °C), the bactericidal efficiencies of all EG-acidic electrolyzed waters (EG-AEWs) with different EG contents were close. The reason is that although the low temperature environment will reduce the sterilization efficiency of EG-AEW, the addition of EG can promote the increase of HClO content in EG-AEW, thus increasing the sterilization efficiency. As long as the HClO content reached 35.2, 50.8 and 64.3 mg L−1, the killing logarithm (KL) value had achieved 4.50, 4.49 and 5.07 log10(CFU mL−1). Finally, the KL values of EG-AEW against Escherichia coli on the corrugated board and stainless-steel board both exceeded 3 log10(CFU mL−1) at the low temperature, which indicates that EG-AEW can be applied in food cold chain.