الفهرس 
cover englishOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 127 |  |  |
| | | from | 127 | | |
Abstract
The increase of consumers’ awareness about the term safety and the importance of the production of microbiologically safe chicken meat encouraged the researchers and food processors to discover a novel decontamination method that is chemically free. Atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) is an emerging non-thermal technology, showing great potential applications in the food industry. Therefore, the aim of this study to investigate the effect of ACP mainly dielectric barrier discharge with different gases (oxygen and argon) and different times (3 min and 5 min) at 20 kV on the bacteriological quality, deterioration criteria, physicochemical parameters, sensory attributes, and topographical structure of chicken breast fillets using the scanning electron microscope. Samples were divided into five groups as follow: the first and second groups were treated with oxygen at 3 min (Oxy3) and 5 min (Oxy5), while the third and fourth groups were treated with argon at 3 min (Ar3) and 5 min (Ar5) beside the control untreated samples. The results showed that all plasma-treated samples induced a significant reduction in all investigated bacterial counts, shear force, and pH values with non-significant changes in TBA, TVBN, and cooking loss%. Moreover, significant improvement of all sensory attributes in all plasma-treated samples except appearance and color scores of Oxy3 and Oxy5 samples were observed. The topographical structure of argon-treated samples showed severe fragmentation in muscle fiber with a wavy appearance and coagulated connective tissue while oxygen-treated samples revealed shallow cracks, coagulated muscle fibers, and amorphous mass connective tissue. The consumed power at the applied voltage (16kV) with oxygen and argon was 0.25 and 0.064 Watt, respectively. Accordingly, DBD plasma treatment with argon gas is a prospective decontamination method that could be applied safely at the poultry processing plants without any negative impact on the appearance and quality of poultry meat.