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The overall goals of the project are to establish the degree of efficacy of chlorine dioxide gas applications in disinfecting fresh-cut lettuce and other leafy vegetables, to establish the point of dose-dependent injury to fresh quality and shelf-life so that such injury can be avoided, and to further improve, extend and transfer treatment application methods to end-users so that adoption of a commercially feasible process becomes possible. Our anticipated outcome is a single-step intervention that contributes a pathogen reduction level in excess of 3 logs (99.9%) to diverse handling systems.
APPROACH: 1. Determine a preliminary injury threshold of chlorine dioxide gas treatments for a range of lettuce types and other leafy green vegetables. <P> 2. Design chambers for continuous application of above treatments that maximize exposure of leaf surfaces to the antimicrobial agents and provide for accurate control of treatment parameters and environmental conditions. <P> 3. Evaluate pilot-scale treatment systems to demonstrate technical and economic feasibility.