Studies on the efficacy of physical, chemical and biological aflatoxin B1 detoxification approaches in red chilli powder

Aflatoxin free powdered red pepper (100 g) was spiked with 100 ppb of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in methanol and was subjected to various physical (UV irradiation, heating, microwave); chemical (oxidation, bleaching, ammoniation, sulphitation) and biological (enzymatic) treatments. The residual AFB1 was quantified by standard methods to find the efficiency of different treatments in degrading AFB1. Amongst the selected physical methods, direct oven heating at 120°C for 12 hours produced maximum (83.32%) AFB1 degradation and UV exposure for 60 min produced 59.62% AFB1 degradation. The chemical treatments had no significant effect on AFB1 degradation in chilli powder with maximum % degradation (58.32) found only by oxidation with H2O2. The biological detoxification of 66.2% was achieved by treating spiked chilli powder with 12 IU of partially purified peroxidase (POD) isolated from garlic having specific activity of 246 mg−1 protein for 26 hours. The physical methods were more efficient over other methods in degrading AFB1, but producedsignificant nutritional losses (p ≤ 0.05). The ascorbic acid and carotenoids were most sensitive quality attribute affected by the treatments. The enzymatic treatment produced minimal quality changes in the treated sample.