Efficacy of sorbitol-coated heated scallop-shell powder for the antimicrobial treatment of fresh vegetables

Abstract Scallop-shell powder, which is mainly composed of CaCO3, exhibits antimicrobial activity through heat treatment due to the generation of CaO. However, although heated scallop-shell powder (HSSP) is effective for disinfecting food, but it also generates CaCO3 scales on the surfaces of the processing equipment due to the reaction of CaO with CO2 in the air. In our previous study, we showed that the addition of sorbitol was able to suppress scale generation in the processing equipment; however, it requires HSSP to be dissolved in sorbitol for a while. Therefore, in this study, we prepared sorbitol-coated HSSP (SC-HSSP) in an attempt to ensure the elution of sorbitol before HSSP. The results revealed that sorbitol coating changed HSSP from a fine powder state (mean volume diameter [MVD] = 7.3 μm) to a granular state (MVD = 137.2 μm), resulted in improved flowability and handling quality, and also reduced the scale buildup and improved the hygroscopicity. The antimicrobial effectiveness of SC-HSSP was almost similar to that of HSSP and NaClO (200 ppm) in reducing total aerobic bacterial population and coliform population on cabbage, lettuce, and cucumber. Therefore, this functional improvement of HSSP along with its antimicrobial efficacy will be help its use as an effective disinfectant for the antimicrobial treatment of fresh produce.