The explanation of the clear effect of the temperature on microbial
inactivation kinetics is closely related to CO2 mass transfer
properties, aside from the impact that thermal treatment itself has
on the inactivation of microorganisms. More specifically, higher
temperatures stimulate the diffusivity of CO2 and increase the
fluidity of cell membranes to facilitate CO2 penetration, causing
several metabolic alterations that are responsible for cellular death
[7,31,32]. However, some studies demonstrated that this behavior
was not always observed because CO2 solubility decreases as
temperature increases, limiting the amount dissolved in the liquid
phase thus in contact with the microorganisms [33]. The results
of Hong and Pyun [34] observed that under constant pressure of
6.8 MPa, microbial inactivation of Lactobacillus plantarum increased
by 1 log as temperature decreased from 40 ◦C to 30 ◦C.