Cold plasma treatment of dairy proteins in relation to functionality enhancement

Background: The increasing demands from consumers for fresh-like 'minimally processed foods have led to unprecedented research into novel non-thermal food processing technologies. This trend has drawn interest in the use of cold plasma systems in the past decade. The nonthermal technologies have been defined as preservation treatments effective at ambient or sublethal temperatures, that minimize undesirable thermal effects on nutritional and quality parameters of foods. Scope and approach: Examination of the unconventional food processing technologies generally tends to be from the standpoint of microbiology, often subordinating their impact on the chemistry of foods. However, cold plasma has been shown to affect chemical components of foods, thereby affecting quality. This review selectively focuses on dairy proteins and their interaction with cold plasma. It briefly describes the nature of cold plasma and their effects on structural configurations of proteins. Furthermore, the review combines this information with the chemistry of dairy proteins to expound upon how functional properties of milk proteins can be modified using cold plasma processing. Finally, the review draws inference from, the analysis of effective enhancement of some functional properties of wheat flour, zein films, pea protein isolate and whey protein isolate mentioned in literature. Key findings and conclusions: Further studies focused on optimization of treatment parameters are required to completely elucidate the effects of cold plasma species on structures and properties of dairy proteins. An understanding of the reactive species of plasma and protein interactions will be a guide for manipulation of functional properties of the dairy proteins.