Effects of tempering with plasma activated water on the degradation of deoxynivalenol and quality properties of wheat

Abstract

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is prevalent in wheat and threatens the health of humans and animals. It has been certificated that plasma activated water (PAW) can effectively degrade DON in wheat. However, the application of PAW used in the production of wheat flours was not reported nowadays. Thus, PAW was used to replace pure water in the traditional tempering process to eliminate DON in wheat, and DON degradation effect of PAW was compared with H2O2 and O3. The DON degradation rate was 58.78 % by tempering for 24 h with PAW prepared at 50 kV for 10 min. The H2O2 and O3 were found to be critical contributors in PAW for DON degradation. Afterwards, effects of PAW on microorganism inactivation and wheat qualities were studied. After tempering with PAW, the bacterial and fungal counts, the number of surviving Fusarium graminearum in wheat were decreased significantly. Moreover, no negative effects were observed except a slight decrease in vitamin E content. Therefore, tempering with PAW can be a promising strategy to control DON pollutant in wheat.