Food-borne diseases are widespread all over the world, and food safety has attracted much attention. This study is the first to use plasma to activate acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) to obtain a new disinfectant for food processing. The germicidal efficacy of plasma-activated acidic electrolyzed water (PA-AEW) on B. subtilis suspension and biofilm was investigated. Furthermore, the synergistic effect of different bactericidal factors was inferred by investigating the physicochemical parameters of PA-AEW and the influencing factors of bactericidal effect. The results demonstrate that PA-AEW is a highly effective and rapid disinfectant. The killing logarithm (KL) value of PA-AEW on B. subtilis suspension could reach 2.33 log10CFU/mL with a sterilization time of 10 s, which is significantly higher than that of AEW (KL = 0.58 log10CFU/mL) and plasma-activated water (PAW) (KL = 0.98 log10CFU/mL) (significant difference, p < 0.01). Moreover, the KL value of the B. subtilis biofilm of PA-AEW was 2.41 log10CFU/mL, better than that of PAW and AEW (significant difference, p < 0.01), indicating that PA-AEW has important application prospects in food processing. The synergistic effect should come from the interaction between reactive chlorine species (RCS) and reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) in PA-AEW.
Keywords: B. subtilis; food processing; plasma-activated acidic electrolyzed water; sterilization effect.