Evaluation of the Effect of Cold Plasma on the Shelf Life of Oyster Mushrooms

Cold plasma is one of the food preservation methods in the food industry, which increases the shelf life of food products, the purpose of this research is to investigate the increase in shelf life of oyster mushrooms under cold plasma treatment under the treatment of two gases (argon and air) for the duration of (0, 5, 10, 20) minutes at the pressure of 1 torr and the power of 100 watts, the surface of oyster mushroom was exposed to cold plasma radiation, which led to a decrease in the total count, coliform, mold and yeast and Pseudomonas syringic PV. The results of microbial and physical analyses showed that in five minutes under cold plasma treatment, excited gases of argon and air reduced the microbial load by 99% and caused the least effect on the physical and appearance properties of oyster mushroom products. In the examination of the physical properties of oyster mushrooms (texture and weight), it was shown that the effect of gas type had a significant effect on these indicators. And about ten percent performance improvement. Increasing plasma treatment time to twenty minutes led to a significant difference (p<0.05). Examining the type of gas and its effect on the treatment showed that the type of gas makes a significant difference and the effectiveness of air gas is slightly higher than argon in the overall count (p<0.05). Cold will be a suitable and low-cost method for sterilizing and pasteurizing mushrooms to increase their shelf life.