Abstract: As a green non-thermal physical sterilization technology, ultrasonic can kill microorganisms in a short period of time while causing little damage to functional components in foods and maintaining food quality, making it a promising candidate for application in the food industry. Spores, a dormant form of vegetative cells with strong resistance to various processing techniques and sanitizers, are difficult to inactivate, attributable to its dense structure. As ultrasonic has only a limited killing effect on spores, many studies have applied a combination of ultrasonic and other sterilization technologies to kill spores. This review focuses on the killing effect and mechanism of ultrasonic alone and in combination with other sterilization technologies on bacterial spores. This review is expected to provide a theoretical reference for the non-thermal inactivation of bacterial spores.

Key words: ultrasound; spore inactivation; non-thermal technology; electrolyzed water