Abstract
Sonication and dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma are sustainable emerging food processing technologies. The study investigates the impact of sonication, DBD-plasma, and thermal treatment (TT) on wheat sprout juice. The obtained results indicated a significant (p < 0.05) increase in chlorophyll, total phenolics, flavonoids, DPPH assay, and ORAC assay after DBD-plasma (40 V) and sonication (30 mins) treatment as compared to TT and untreated samples. Both emerging technologies significantly (p < 0.05) reduce the polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase activities, but the TT sample had the highest reduction. Moreover, the synergistic application of both technologies significantly reduced the E. coli/Coliform, aerobics, yeast and mold up to the 2 log reduction, but the TT sample had a complete reduction. DBD-plasma and sonication processing significantly decreased (p < 0.05) the particle size, reducing apparent viscosity (η) and consistency index (K); while increasing the flow behavior (n), leading to higher stability of wheat sprout juice. To assess the impact of emerging techniques on nutrient concentration, we used surface-enhance Raman spectroscopy (SERS) as an emerging method. Silver-coated gold nano-substrates were used to compare the nutritional concentration of wheat sprout juice treated with sonication, DBD-plasma, and TT-treated samples. Results showed sharp peaks for samples treated with DBD-plasma followed by sonication, untreated, and TT. The obtained results, improved quality of wheat sprout juice, and lower microbial and enzymatic loads were confirmed, showing the suitability of these sustainable processing techniques for food processing and further research.