Abstract: In order to retain the freshness and prolong the shelf-life of fresh eggs, a new type of cold sterilization technology was put forward, namely gliding arc discharge, which can be worked in air environment at room temperature. Firstly, egg surface was coated with Salmonella suspension and transported through plasma discharge plume at a certain speed of self-spinning to inactivate the surface bacteria, part of which was sampled to investigate its inactivated mechanism and the remaining treated eggs were stored in a sealed environment at 37 ℃ to assess the impact of this air discharge plasma on egg quality by measuring the mass loss rate and Haugh unit (HU). The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and extracellular protein concentration analysis indicate that atmospheric gliding arc discharge technique could have an effective etching effect on Salmonella, leading to cell membrane disruption and leakage of intracellular proteins of Salmonella. Meanwhile, the egg quality measurements showed that the atmospheric gliding arc discharge could maintain the freshness of eggs to a certain extent.

Key words: atmospheric gliding arc discharge, fresh eggs, preservation, inactivation, Salmonella