Decontamination of fresh apples using air micro-nanobubbles with epsilon-poly-lysine

Fresh and minimally processed apples demand high-efficiency decontamination approach to ensure their safety and quality. This research investigated air micro-nanobubbles (MNB) assisted washing as an innovative decontamination method for fresh apples, to improve the overall efficiency, a food-grade antimicrobial agent epsilon-poly-lysine (<italic>ε</italic>-PL) was simultaneously used during the examinations for removing representative pathogen, spoilage yeast, and pesticides from the fruit surface. The findings revealed that the combined <italic>ε</italic>-PL (250 mg/L) and MNB treatment substantially decreased the microbial load on apple surfaces, achieving beyond 3-log reductions for both <italic>Listeria monocytogenes</italic> and <italic>Pichia kudriavzevii</italic>. The pesticide removal rate of trichlorfon by MNB and <italic>ε</italic>-PL reached 77.3%, significantly (<italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.05) higher than individual treatments. Additionally, apple quality post-MNB-assisted decontaminations did not show significant differences compared to other treatments after 20 d of storage. MNB-assisted washing with <italic>ε</italic>-PL is a promising technology for fresh produce decontamination.