**2. Physical treatment of aflatoxin removal and detoxification**

#### **2.1 Cleaning and segregation of aflatoxins**

The first option to reduce aflatoxin is to physically separate the mold-contaminated grains or feed (kernel, seeds, and nuts) from the intact and apparently uncontaminated product. The physical procedure is the safe way not to alter the products significantly, including cleaning, sorting, and handpicking [7]. In the developing countries or economically underdeveloped areas, the people have little or no access to do mycotoxin testing of their foods. Hand sorting is still the primary method to remove AFB1. As compared with other methods including flotation and dehulling of the grains, hand sorting of maize grains boasts <6% of AFB1 and <5% of fumonisin B1. Thus hand sorting of maize grains is being recommended as a last line of defense against mycotoxin exposure among subsistence consumers [8].

**179**

*Decontamination of Aflatoxin B1*

**2.3 Microwave heat treatment**

**2.4 Irradiation treatment**

**2.5 Electrolyzed water (EOW) treatment**

**2.6 Pulsed light technology to remove AFB1**

food.

feedstuffs.

reach nearly 100%.

**2.2 Heating treatment**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88774*

Aflatoxins are well known to be stable at high temperature. In modern food/feed manufacturing technology, heating treatment is always used to degrade mycotoxins to a certain extent during the processing. Recent studies have shown that AFB1 could be significantly removed at high humidity [9–12]. However, several possible facts are associated with the prediction of the extent of mycotoxin reduction, such as initial mycotoxin concentration, the extent of binding between mycotoxin and food or feed products, heat penetration, moisture content, and processing conditions. Nonetheless, heat treatment to partially reduce the mycotoxin concentration in the food/feed stuffs is still the feasible physiological method because heating technique can be carried out easily at low cost. Extrusion cooking is broadly used in the field of food industry, which is an efficient process in food/feed process. High temperature with short-time extrusion is commonly used in the industry [5].

Perez-Flores et al. [13] found that aflatoxin content could be significantly reduced by microwave thermal-alkaline treatment in the traditional Mexico food tortillas. Using extract acidification methods to mimic human stomach digestion procedure to quantify AFB1 concentration, the results indicated that the aflatoxin reduction was almost permanent. However, this thermal-alkaline treatment for tortilla-making could only remove most of AFB; thus some AFB would be left in the

Another most commonly reported physical decontamination technology is γ radiation. The use of γ radiation has been reported on some kinds of food substrates including groundnuts, grains, palm juice, soybean, and animal feed. Irradiating the food products with a γ-ray source is moderately effective with an average percent reduction of 65% at high irradiation dose [14–20]. Gamma irradiation is a promising method to improve the safety and economy of moderately fungi-damaged

Electrolyzed water treatment is a sort of newly developing skill to treat AFB1 contaminated foods or feeds. The AFB1 was markedly reduced when treated with EOW, particularly with neutral electrolyzed oxidizing water (NEW). The levels of OH that exist in EOW could be the important reason that leads to significant fungicidal efficiencies against *A. flavus*. After 15 min treatment with EOW, AFB1 was mostly degraded [21, 22]. Another study performed by Fan et al. [23] showed that alkaline electrolyzed water (AIEW) could remove AFB1, and its best working condition was at pH 12.2. When 10 ml AIEW with pH 12.2 was added into 5.0 g peanut oil or olive oil, followed by oscillation for 5 min at 20°C, AFB1 removal could

Pulsed light has been demonstrated to be an effective decontamination technique capable of destroying bacteria, viruses, fungi, and spores at the surface of food and material [24]. The work of Moreau et al. [25] provides the first
