Advances in Cold Plasma Applications for Food Safety and Preservation

Daniela Bermudez-Aguirre has a background in Food Engineering (BSc), Food Science (MSc), and Engineering Science, with a focus on Food Engineering (PhD). She currently works as a Research Food Technologist at USDA Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, PA where she uses innovative interventions to control foodborne pathogens in different food products. During her graduate and post-doctorate work at Washington State University (WSU), she was involved in the development of nonthermal technologies for food processing and preservation, such as high hydrostatic pressure, pulsed electric fields, ultrasound, ultraviolet, cold plasma, and ozone. Her research at WSU also included projects funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) to improve the quality of military rations without compromising the food safety using innovative thermal processing. Afterwards, she worked as a senior research scientist for Lockheed Martin, a contractor of NASA. At NASA Johnson Space Center, she was the principal investigator of a project that used cold plasma to disinfect vegetables grown and consumed in-orbit by astronauts. In the last few years, she has been a consultant to industry and research centers about the use and applications of cold plasma equipment. She is the author of more than 60 peer-review publications, editor of 3 books in Food Engineering, and reviewer of over 50 high-impact journals in food science and technology. She has more than 20 years of experience working on nonthermal technologies for food safety and product development.

• Part I. Fundamentals of Cold Plasma Technology1. Engineering principles of cold plasma2. Advances in the inactivation of microorganisms and viruses in food and model systems using cold plasma3. Mathematical modeling during microbial inactivation with cold plasma4. Cold plasma to control biofilms in food and in the food-processing environmentPart II. Food Preservation by Cold Plasma5. Disinfection of high moisture food using cold plasma6. Disinfection of granular food products using cold plasma7. Enzyme inactivation model systems and food matrices by cold plasma8. Effect of cold plasma in food components9. Packed food and packaging materials disinfected by cold plasmaPart III. Equipment10. Equipment design for cold plasma disinfection of food products11. Microwave and radio-frequency poweredcold plasma applications for food safety and preservationPart IV. Special Applications of Cold Plasma and Regulatory Status12. Cold plasma for space food applications13. Regulatory status of cold plasma in food applications