Emerging scientific directions in plasma technology for food decontamination

The purpose of this research is to analyze the evolutionary growth of knowledge in nonthermal plasma technologies applied for food decontamination in order to pinpoint emerging scientific directions. The sample uses 22,836 articles and 2,282 patents from Scopus/SciVerse database in order to calculate the rate of scientific and technological growth that may detect emerging technological trajectories and applications. Results show that emerging plasma technology for food decontamination are mainly cold atmospheric pressure plasma and gas plasma. Moreover, plasma seems to be a promising technology for decontamination of fresh food from bacteria Staphylococcus Aureus, Listeria Monocytogenes and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, respectively. However, key limitations are the relatively early state of technology development, and the largely unexplored impacts of non thermal plasma on nutritional qualities of treated foods. Nevertheless, this technology shows promise for biodecontamination and is the subject of active research to enhance efficacy and open up crucial opportunities to industrial and social safety.