The inhibitory effect of water ozonation on reduction of Aspergillus parasiticus growth during wheat tempering

Food and feed spoilage moulds cause great economic losses worldwide. Wheat is important cereal in Iran and very sensitive to mould contamination aflatoxigenic moulds. Ozone recognized as a strong disinfection substance since before 1997. It decomposes rapidly to molecular oxygen without leaving a residue. In order to study the effect of ozonated water on growth of Aspergillus parasiticus, wheat samples inoculated with spore suspension (10, 102,104spore/gr wheat) of Aspergillus parasiticus and incubated at 25-30◦Cfor 10 days. Contaminated samples incubated at <20, 25, 40◦C for 24h, after tempering with ozonated water to concentrations of 0, 1, 2, 2.5 mg ozone/l. For evaluate of ozone effectiveness on reduction of Aspergillus parasiticus, weighing of mould mycelium method was used after drying.Then fungal mycelia were weighted to evaluate the effect of ozone on Aspergillus parasiticus growth. Results indicated that ozonated water can reduce Aspergillus parasiticus growth and this the reduction can be increased due to increasing of ozone concentration. Tempering with ozonated water had significant effect on A. parasiticus growth (p < 0.001). Therefore, the ozonated water usage in wheat tempering can be caused reduction of Aspergillus parasiticus growth.