Blocking and degradation of aflatoxins by cold plasma treatments: Applications and mechanisms

Abstract

Aflatoxins are one of the maximal menaces to food safety and public health and can contaminate food during the entire process from field to table, which can then be digested by the consumer, causing irreversible negative impacts such as immunotoxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic effects. Therefore, development of novel technology to decontaminate aflatoxins is obviously important for the food industry. Cold plasma (CP) is an emerging novel nonthermal technology with eco-friendliness, high-efficiency and low cost, which has recently been widely studied for inactivating microorganisms and mycotoxins. This review presents a brief overview of aflatoxins and cold plasma treatment (CPT) and provides detailed information on the blocking and degradation of aflatoxins by CPT and its potential mechani