Abstract
Food commodities could be contaminated with toxigenic moulds during harvesting, drying, handling, packaging, storage and transportation. The most common micotoxins are known as aflatoxins (AFs) which are produced by Aspergillus species. Therefore, the current study was designed to synthesis, characterization and antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus of graphene oxide nanoparticles (GO-NPs). Furthermore, the potential capability of GO-NPs as an AFs adsorbent was assessed by altering optimizing parameters such as adsorbent dosage, initial concentration of adsorbate, pH, contact time and incubation temperature. The structural and optical properties of GO-NPs were assessed using SEM, FT-IR, EDX and UV/Vis spectroscopy. The results showed that GO-NPs showed the strong antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus and reduce the AFs production. Furthermore, GO-NPs effectively reduce the AFs contamination at dose of 150 mu g/mL using AFs concentration of 20 ng/mL. Kinetic studies revealed that adsorption process is spontaneous, and followed the pseudo-second order. GO-NPs can be effectively utilized during the harvesting of agricultural commodities as well as in food chain system for the control of fungal growth and AFs contamination.