Photocatalytic Degradation and Pathway from Mycotoxins in Food: A Review

ABSTRACT

Mycotoxins are highly toxic secondary metabolites produced by fungi, which are seriously contaminating food and endangering human health. A variety of methods have been endeavored to remove mycotoxins from food, while photocatalytic technology has exhibited great potential for the degradation of these mycotoxins because of its advantages of high efficiency and low cost, with an emphasis on the degradations of aflatoxin and deoxynivalenol. This review updated the progress on the photocatalytic degradation of mycotoxins in food, then summarized the characteristics of new photocatalytic materials and associated factors and the degradation products of mycotoxins, and finally explained the possible degradation mechanisms and pathways. This review also provided a prospect for the degradation of mycotoxins by photocatalytic technology.

KEYWORDS:

• Aflatoxin
• degradation products
• deoxynivalenol
• mycotoxins
• photocatalyst

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project No. 31871858) and the Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province (project No. 21B0113).