Potential Application of Cold Plasma Technology to control Aflatoxin contamination in Tropical Food Product

Abstract

Tropical foods, especially cereals and legumes, have been found to show elevated levels of aflatoxin contamination. This poses serious health risks to humans and animals that consume such foods. Also, these contaminated food products face frequent rejection at the international markets due to safety concerns thereby leading to food wastage, economic losses to producers, and reputational damage of the country where the aflatoxin-infested food products originate. Therefore, the need for an effective and innovative decontamination strategy other than the conventional methods to overcome these concerns has become necessary and urgent. Cold plasma technology, as a non-thermal food preservation technique, has emerged as a promising food decontamination intervention for mycotoxins inactivation thereby ensuring the safety of food and extended shelf-life. This review sought to demonstrate the potential application of cold plasma technology in causing the degradation of aflatoxin B1 in some selected foods. The application of cold plasma was observed to be effective in degrading the most toxicologically bioactive form of the aflatoxins, by rendering them less harmful than the original aflatoxin B1 molecule. Several studies confirmed the effectiveness of cold plasma treatment of various food matrices to inhibit the activities of aflatoxin-producing fungi: Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. The plasma technology assisted in the disintegration of the toxigenic aflatoxin molecules (B1, B2, G1 and G2) accumulated in foodstuffs such as cereals and nuts (groundnuts). In view of its aflatoxin-control efficacy, sustainability due to low running cost, and minimal impact on the nutritive value of foods, this review proposes the adoption and utilization of cold plasma as a food preservation technique by agro-based businesses and commercial food processing companies. This will help reduce the levels of aflatoxins in foods to acceptable local and international standards to enhance food security, profitability for businesses in the food supply chain, national revenue maximization through food export, and guaranteed food safety for the global consumers.