Recent developments in pasteurising seeds and their products using radio frequency heating: a review

Food-borne or plant diseases mainly rely on the spread of seeds with pathogens. It is vital to eliminate food/seed-borne pathogens of seeds and their products before commercial import/export or circulation. Radio frequency (RF) heating is identified as an effective method with lack of chemical residues, rapid or volumetric heating and large penetration depth, and also validated as a potential physical method to eliminate pests or pathogens in agricultural products or foods. Although, many reviews have summarised the applications of RF treatment during the process of foods, little comprehensive review has been focused on seeds and their products pasteurised by the RF energy. Comprehensive summary about principles and main applications of RF energy for pasteurising seeds and their products was reported in this review. This review also introduced some typical RF heating systems, thermal death kinetics of pathogens, influences of RF heating on germination rate of seeds and some ways for improving uniformity of RF heating. Furthermore, this review recommended the future research directions about treatment of seeds and their products using RF energy, especially for seed industry to control the pathogens in seeds without reducing their quality after RF treatments.