Influence of Cold Atmospheric Plasma Treatment on Fresh-Cut Mango Shelf-Life Extension

Abstract

Emergence of cold plasma technology has demonstrated a great potential for decontaminating fresh fruits and vegetables due to its non-thermal characteristics. A packed-bed plasma reactor with maximum high voltage of 8 kVDC was developed to generate gaseous reactive radicals from ambient air for post-process decontaminating of the fresh-cut and ready-to-eat mango. This Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) machine employed gas from the glow discharge and a mixture of this gas with fine mist fog to inactivate microbial load. Average Total Plate Count (TPC) of untreated or controlled fresh-cut mango was observed to be above a maximum TPC requirement of 6 log CFU/g on the 5^th day of 4°C refrigerated storage, while those of the CAP treatment reached the maximum TPC requirement on the 10^th day. The CAP treatment of fresh-cut mango samples without- and with-fog presented significant microbial reductions of 2.09 and 1.87 log CFU/g, respectively, more than controlled samples on the 10^th day of storage. Moreover, a browning-process deceleration of treated mango samples with CAP could be observed from L^*a^*b^* without affecting samples’ pH and acidity during 10-day storage. Therefore, the CAP treatment revealed a strong possibility to extend a shelf-life of fresh-cut mango in the refrigerated storage.