Low temperature plasma sterilization and storage stability of safflower seed oil/dragon fruits juice emulsion

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to promote the deep development of safflower seed oil. Methods: Taking sterilization rate as an index, safflower seed oil/dragon fruits juice emulsion was treated by different processing distance, voltage and time. Response surface methodology was used to establish the conditions for low temperature plasma （LTP）sterilization of emulsion. The changes of physicochemical indexes (vitamin C and anthocyanin content, particle size and ζ potential, peroxide value and acid value) during storage were compared between thermal sterilization (at 80 ℃ for 20 min) and LTP sterilization. Results: The optimized process conditions of LTP sterilization were treatment distance at 5.1 cm and voltage of 6.4 kV for 151.0 s. Under the control of these conditions, the sterilization rate reached 98.2%. After storage for 20 days, the retention rate of vitamin C and anthocyanin in LTP-treated emulsion was higher than that in heat-treated emulsion, and the particle size was smaller than that in heat-treated emulsion; The ζ potential was higher than that in heat-treated emulsion, and the difference was significant（P＜0.05）. However, the difference of peroxide value and acid value was not significant. Conclusion: LTP treatment can not only effectively kill the microorganisms in the emulsion, but also maintain the quality of emulsion better than heat treatment, and the invention relates to a new method for sterilizing the safflower seed oil/dragon fruits juice emulsion.

Keywords

• low temperature plasma
• safflower seed oil
• dragon fruits
• emulsion
• sterilization
• quality properties