Decontamination of mycotoxigenic fungi on shelled corn using selective infrared heating technique
2021
Wilson, Shantae A. | Mohammadi Shad, Zeinab | Oduola, Abass A. | Zhou, Zonghui | Jiang, Hongrui | Carbonero, Franck | Atungulu, Griffiths G.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Mycotoxigenic fungi pose a severe threat to humans’ health and cause economic losses to crop growers. This study investigated the impact of selected wavelengths of infrared (IR), as a novel technique, followed by a tempering step to inactivate the fungi on shelled corn. FINDINGS: Ascomycota was found to be the most dominant phylum (95.6 and 93.2%, respectively) on corn treated with only IR and IR followed by a tempering. Among fungal genera, Aspergillus was the primary genus found on corn treated with only IR heat. However, a significant reduction in relative abundance of Aspergillus (22%) was obtained when corn with 16% moisture content (wet basis) was treated with the following set up: IR wavelength of 3.2 µm at product‐to‐emitter gap of 110 mm, and 60 s duration. CONCLUSION: The use of selected IR wavelengths is effective in inactivating mycotoxigenic fungi such as Aspergillus flavus. The further significant suppression of the mycotoxigenic fungi is feasible with incorporating a tempering step into the IR heat treatment. SIGNIFICANCE AND NOVELTY: The selected IR system is scalable for large scale industrial application, offering promises of reliable and rapid mycotoxigenic fungal inactivation on corn and other cereals.
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