Synergy of Plasma Processing and Optical Emission Spectroscopy in Food Safety Control

The food processing industry is seeking new technologies to enhance product safety, extend shelf life, and optimise food quality in response to growing consumer demand for high-quality products. Since the discovery of plasma technology, its potential applications in food processing have been numerous. For most of these applications, plasma characterisation is key to successfully scaling up from laboratory to industrial settings. A highly valuable tool for plasma characterisation is optical emission spectroscopy (OES), which serves as a non-invasive diagnostic method to monitor reactive species, specifically excited atoms and molecules (reactive oxygen and nitrogen species—RONS) that are critical for food treatment. The main role of OES in food control is to enable species identification and real-time process monitoring, providing feedback on electron temperature and density to prevent thermal damage to sensitive food products. It also facilitates optimisation by adjusting voltage and gas flow rates to maximise the production of antimicrobial species. These results ensure that processes are reliable and repeatable, supporting the transition from laboratory-scale to industrial applications. The paper provides an overview of the use of optical emission spectroscopy in various applications of plasma technology in food processing, including the determination of the elemental composition of raw materials and final products, detection of contaminants, quality control, determination of characteristic plasma parameters, and ensuring compliance with food safety regulations.