Regular Article

Optimization and influence of multi-hollow surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma operating conditions on the physical quality of peanut

¹ Department of Food Process Engineering and Postharvest Technology, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia
² School of Chemical and Bioengineering, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
³ Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
⁴ R&D Center for Low-Cost Plasma and Nanotechnology Surface Modifications (CEPLANT), Department of Physical Electronics, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

^a e-mail: gebre24@gmail.com

Received: 10 November 2018
Received in final form: 4 March 2019
Published online: 14 May 2019

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of atmospheric pressure plasma generated by multi-hollow surface dielectric barrier discharges on physical quality of peanut (Arachis Hypogea L). Multi-hollow surface dielectric barrier discharge is a novel plasma device applicable in food industry applications due to the capacity of the generated plasma to treat the surface of food without changing the quality. Response surface methodology was used to optimize the plasma treatment for surface treatment as raw peanut forms over a range of power (10–40 W), air flow rate (0.5–20 L/min) and time (1–15 min). The weight loss, hardness, contact angle, color parameters, microstructure, and sensory quality evaluation were evaluated during plasma treatments and modeled by response surface methodology and compared the means. Second order polynomial model adequately described the plasma treated experimental data except for sensory attributes with an insignificant lack of fit (p > 0.05). The result revealed that extreme conditions caused a decrease in L^*,b^*, hardness, contact angle, increased weight loss, color change and changed the microstructure of the treated peanuts.