Inactivation of Surface-Borne Microorganisms and Increased Germination of Seed Specimen by Cold Atmospheric Plasma

By A. Mitra, Yang-Fang Li, Tobias G. Klämpfl, Tetsuji Shimizu, Jin Jeon, G. Morfill, J. Zimmermann. Food and Bioprocess Technology, 2014

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Sustaining the quality of seeds is a major task in attempting to supply nutrition to the growing world population. In this study, the seeds of Cicer arietinum were exposed to cold atmospheric plasma (CAP). A significant reduction of the natural microbiota attached to the seed surface was observed for increasing CAP treatment times—2 and 5 min were sufficient to achieve a 1 and 2 log reductions, respectively. Furthermore a 1 min CAP treatment showed a strongly improved seed germination (89.2 %), speed of germination (7.1 ± 0.1 seeds/day), and increased seed vigor, beside a decrease in the mean germination time (2.7 days) compared with controls. The roughness profile of the seed cotyledon was altered significantly, only in case of longer treatment times from 5 min. These results suggest that CAP technology has the potentiality to reduce health risks associated with contaminated seeds, while improving food quality.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Physiology, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dc68cf440f040d0f3e49f72f0c03dcf922c99b04