Abstract / Description
Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma (NTP) was used to study the possibility of stimulating the production of nutraceutical compounds in cress (Lepidium sativum) sprouts following seed treatments. Since previous results indicated an important contribution of the reactive species produced inside the NTP, this work focused on this aspect and compared the effects of direct plasma (DP) treatment with those of concentrated reactive species (simulating the placement of the seeds inside a closed package) – with cover treatments (C), and reactive species (R) produced by the discharge. Biometric measurements of the sprouts indicated that the reactive species produced in 10 kV NTP almost doubled the length of the sprouts grown from seeds exposed for 60 s, while the largest roots belonged to sprouts resulted from DP10 kV NTP treatment for the same time interval. Chemical analyses were focused on determining the concentrations of chlorophyll pigments, flavonoids, polyphenols, and antioxidant activity, along with the identification of bioactive compounds by liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).The best conditions for stimulating the nutraceutical potential of cress were those corresponding to 10 kV NTP DP treatment with strong contribution from the reactive species. These results of NTP treatment of seeds indicate a promising basis for the use of such technology as a green agricultural biotechnology for the stimulation of the growth and enhancing the sprouts’ nutraceutical value.