Mycotoxin Decontamination of Foods Using Nonthermal Plasma and Plasma-Activated Water

Abstract

Mycotoxins are food safety and public health concerns due to their widespread contamination in agricultural products and adverse health effects on humans. Several decontamination techniques, including physical-, chemical-, and thermal-based treatments, are employed to minimize the levels of mycotoxins in food. However, these treatments present disadvantages, such as negative impacts on the quality and leftover chemical residues on the treated food after physical- and chemical-based treatments. Furthermore, mycotoxins are resistant to heat, thus contributing to the insufficiency of thermal treatments for complete mycotoxin degradation. The use of alternative nonthermal-based treatments, such as nonthermal plasma (NTP) and plasma-activated water (PAW) for mycotoxin degradation in food, have been recently explored to overcome these limitations. NTP and PAW treatments are known to minimize the unfavorable changes in food quality while ensuring safety from food contaminants. The basics of NTP and PAW technologies, their mycotoxin decontamination efficiencies, their underlying mechanisms of action, effects on food quality, and the safety of mycotoxin degradation byproducts and treated food are hereby discussed in this chapter.