Abstract
Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a secondary metabolite produced by Fusarium, which is a trichothecene mycotoxin. As the main mycotoxin with high toxicity, wheat, barley, corn and their products are susceptible to contamination of DON. Due to the stability of this mycotoxin, traditional methods for DON reduction often require a strong oxidant, high temperature and high pressure with more energy consumption. Therefore, exploring green, efficient and environmentally friendly ways to degrade or reduce DON is a meaningful and challenging issue. Herein, a dendritic-like α-Fe2O3 was successfully prepared using a facile hydrothermal synthesis method at 160 °C, which was systematically characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It was found that dendritic-like α-Fe2O3 showed superior activity for the photocatalytic degradation of DON in aqueous solution under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm) and 90.3% DON (initial concentration of 4.0 μg/mL) could be reduced in 2 h. Most of all, the main possible intermediate products were proposed through high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) after the photocatalytic treatment. This work not only provides a green and promising way to mitigate mycotoxin contamination but also may present useful information for future studies.
Highlights
Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a water-soluble trichothecene mycotoxin produced by Fusarium, which can contaminate many grains such as wheat, barley, corn and other cereal crops [1]
The representative crystal planes of the rhombohedral α-Fe2 O3 were labeled in the pattern
The strong and steep peaks indicated that the as-prepared α-Fe2 O3 was of high crystallinity
Summary
Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a water-soluble trichothecene mycotoxin produced by Fusarium, which can contaminate many grains such as wheat, barley, corn and other cereal crops [1]. The data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2001) and the European Union (2002), 57% of wheat samples were contaminated by DON in approximately 22,000 tested samples [2]. The international agency for research on cancer (IARC) had classified DON as the third class of carcinogens (not classifiable) in 2002 [3,4]. The contamination of DON can cause enormous economic losses of agriculture and bring serious threats to the health of human beings and animals. It was found that exposure to excessive DON could cause many adverse reactions, including dizziness, nausea and vomiting [5,6]. Attention has been paid to reduce or mitigate DON using different strategies
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