Elimination of Aspergillus flavus from Pistachio Nuts with Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) Cold Plasma and Its Impacts on Biochemical Indices

Table 1

Effect of different durations of cold plasma on the values of the total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity, malondialdehyde (MDA), pigments, total soluble protein (TSP), and instrumental color parameters of pistachio nuts.

Properties	Time of plasma treatments (sec)
	0	15	30	60	90	120	150	180
TPC (mg GAE/g)	1.81^ab ± 0.05	1.78^a–c ± 0.08	1.67^c ± 0.08	1.71^bc ± 0.08	1.76^a–c ± 0.03	1.84^a ± 0.05	1.85^a ± 0.08	1.79^a–c ± 0.01
Inhibitory of DPPH activity (%)	86.85^c ± 0.58	86.43^c ± 0.60	87.01^bc ± 0.40	87.82^ab ± 0.35	87.90^a ± 0.29	87.12^a–c ± 0.42	87.82^ab ± 0.42	87.94^a ± 0.42
MDA (n mol. g^−1)	24.96^d ± 1.34	25.77^cd ± 0.39	25.71^cd ± 1.14	28.31^bc ± 1.66	29.04^b ± 1.66	28.82^b ± 1.14	29.49^ab ± 1.46	31.92^a ± 2.61
TSP (mg/g)	3.56^b ± 0.22	3.40^b ± 0.23	4.10^a ± 0.10	3.61^b ± 0.10	4.30^a ± 0.20	3.68^b ± 0.30	2.86^c ± 0.08	2.50^d ± 0.09
Pigments (μg·g^−1)
Chlorophyll a	25.91^a ± 0.27	22.89^b ± 0.39	21.83^c ± 0.51	18.65^e ± 0.76	18.50^e ± 0.53	20.16^d ± 0.62	20.65^d ± 0.36	20.13^d ± 0.60
Chlorophyll b	26.44^a ± 0.21	23.86^c ± 0.43	24.63^bc ± 0.56	24.63^d ± 0.76	22.17^d ± 0.55	24.15^c ± 1.06	26.28^a ± 0.61	25.83^ab ± 1.02
Total chlorophyll	52.35^a ± 0.43	46.75^b ± 0.79	46.46^bc ± 1.05	46.46^d ± 1.39	40.67^d ± 1.07	44.31^b ± 1.69	46.93^b ± 0.97	45.96^bc ± 1.60
Total carotenoid	24.23^a ± 0.10	21.63^d ± 0.28	22.42^b ± 0.13	18.08^g ± 0.16	17.51^h ± 0.08	18.77^f ± 0.09	19.10^e ± 0.07	21.90^c ± 0.04
Instrumental color
Lightness (L)	62.07^a ± 0.38	61.03^b ± 0.60	60.82^bc ± 0.40	61.20^ab ± 0.56	61.25^ab ± 0.24	59.85^d ± 0.47	59.97^cd ± 0.31	61.45^ab ± 0.80
Redness ()	−5.51^f ± 0.30	−4.74^e ± 0.16	−4.13^d ± 0.43	−3.83^cd ± 0.17	−3.54^bc ± 0.15	−3.37^bc ± 0.38	−3.04^b ± 0.47	−0.38^a ± 0.06
Yellowness ()	32.04^a ± 0.25	30.13^b ± 0.33	30.48b ± 0.18	30.77^b ± 0.50	30.04^bc ± 0.58	30.39^b ± 0.34	29.26^cd ± 0.65	28.49^d ± 0.57
Chroma ()	32.51^a ± 0.29	30.50^b ± 0.35	30.76b ± 0.23	31.00^b ± 0.52	30.24^b ± 0.56	30.57^b ± 0.35	29.42^c ± 0.70	28.49^d ± 0.57

Values (mean ± SD) in a row without the same superscript letter differ statistically ().