A new sterilization technique to Escherichia coli combined with high pulse electric field and thermal sterilization technology

High Pulse Electric Field (PEF) , which was highly developed in recent years, is a potential non-thermal sterilization technology. However, because of its complicated parameters, such as field strength, pulse width, frequency, time, pulse number and other parameters, the best sterilization parameters are still unknown. In this study a combination sterilization technique was designed, which took the advantages of both PEF sterilization technique and the traditional thermal sterilization technology, to achieve a simple, energy-saving, fast, safe and efficient sterilization technology. Through the experiment, heating Escherichia coli (E. coli) at 45℃ for 5min before the high PEF sterilization could decrease the survival rate to 13.69%. In conclusion, this new combination sterilization technique could not only save energy, but also apply to the food sterilization which could not be heated up to 45℃.