Effectiveness of combined catalytic infrared radiation and holding time for decontamination Aspergillus niger on dried shiitake mushrooms (Lentinus edodes) with different moisture contents

Abstract

This paper investigated the effect of catalytic infrared radiation (CIR) only and CIR coupled with holding time (CIRH) on decontamination of damp-returning dried shiitake mushrooms contaminated with Aspergillus niger (A. niger). The effect of initial moisture content (IMC) of the samples on CIR/CIRH operation layout was also investigated. Analysis of surface color, observations of electron microscopy and evaluation of quality (retention rate of total sugar, crude protein and total phenolics) directly manifested that CIRH treatment had the outstanding potential to maintain the original appearance and microstructure compared to CIR (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the envisaged model (Log-Linear + tail) achieved expected results for the inactivation of A. niger with R2 = 0.9790–0.9977, which can well predict the changes in A. niger of dried shiitake mushrooms with different IMCs in the holding process. Therefore, the present work could pave the way for future production of good quality dried shiitake mushrooms using CIRH.