Next-Generation Nonthermal Processing: Exploring Cold Plasma for Food Safety and Quality Improvement

The global food industry faces mounting pressure to deliver products that are both safe and minimally processed, retaining their natural taste, color, and nutritional value. While conventional thermal pasteurization remains effective for microbial inactivation, it often diminishes sensory qualities and depletes heat-sensitive nutrients. In response, nonthermal decontamination technologies have gained traction, with cold plasma (CP) emerging as a particularly promising approach for enhancing food safety while preserving—and in some cases improving—nutritional quality.

Cold plasma, a partially ionized gas rich in reactive species, operates at near-ambient temperatures, making it ideal for treating heat-sensitive food products without inducing thermal damage. Research has demonstrated CP’s ability to inactivate a wide range of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms. Beyond microbial safety, CP treatment offers additional quality benefits, including reduced enzymatic activity, enhanced antioxidant capacity, and elevated levels of bioactive compounds such as anthocyanins—contributing to both nutritional and functional improvements.

A key strength of CP technology lies in its versatility. It can be adapted to different food matrices and is effective against a broad spectrum of microbes. However, scaling up from laboratory studies to commercial application presents notable challenges. These include optimizing plasma generation parameters, elucidating the complex interactions between reactive species and food components, achieving uniform treatment in continuous systems, and ensuring the long-term stability of quality enhancements.

This research topic seeks to advance the understanding and application of CP in food processing by fostering studies that address these scientific and technical hurdles. Relevant contributions may focus on the development of scalable CP systems, kinetic modeling of microbial and enzymatic inactivation, comprehensive assessment of nutritional and sensory outcomes, and evaluations of regulatory, economic, and consumer acceptance factors.

By drawing on expertise from food science, engineering, and microbiology, this topic aims to close the gap between promising laboratory findings and robust, industry-ready solutions. Ultimately, the vision is to establish cold plasma as a viable, sustainable, and widely accepted alternative to conventional processing—delivering foods that are safe, high-quality, and abundant in natural health-promoting compounds.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Food technology, Cold Plasma, Microbial inactivation, Antioxidant activity, and Bioactive compounds, Plasma production, Plasma sources, Scale-up, Barrier discharge, Plasma-activated water, Cold Plasma Technology, Nonthermal Food Processing

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.