Effectiveness of Ozone Gas Application Methods against Combined Multi-Contaminants in Food

Abstract

Despite the ozone (known as GRAS - generally recognized as safe) gas treatments published for each food living organism or chemical decontamination, they are not necessarily present or contaminate food individually. Most of the time, they are present all together. Therefore, the most important point, regarding an O3 application method to be chosen is its effectiveness to all contaminants that may be in the target food. Therefore, ozone gas decontamination methods that gather combined multi-contaminants and their effectiveness in food were surveyed. Both, for inactivation of living organisms (insects, mites, fungi, yeasts and bacteria) and degradation of toxic compounds (pesticides and mycotoxins). They are the main need for an effective and comprehensive commercial decontamination application. This review brings details on O3 formation energy sources, its application conditions (concentration / time of exposure), container characteristics (volume / material type / sealed or hermetic) and effectiveness for different food (type / contamination level / batch size/moisture content). From the studies and data reported, ozone has shown to be an efficient green agent for combined multi-decontamination, thus prolonging the food storage and shelf life. It does not cause/produce adverse effects on food quality.