How eco-friendly is your mycotoxin analysis?

Organic solvents always played an important role in mycotoxin analysis.  However they have a negative impact on the environment and impose a hazard for the lab technician.

Research showed that alternative, less toxic, organic solvents and even aqueous solutions can be used for the extraction of mycotoxins. Aqueous solutions are also more cost effective. So how eco-friendly is your mycotoxin analysis?

Looking for the best solvent to extract aflatoxin from corn

Until the 90’s chloroform was commonly used as extraction solvent for aflatoxins. Later mixtures based on methanol or acetonitrile and water became the preferred extraction solvents. This poster by Bruce Malone and Carrie Maune from Trilogy Analytical Laboratory gives an extensive overview of the extraction efficiencies.

Yet these organic solvents impose an environmental burden, are hazardous and may cause problems with antibody based methods like ELISA and the widespread used lateral flow immunoassays. Besides organic solvents add to the costs of analysis. An aflatoxin extraction method based on water would not have these drawbacks.

How to extract aflatoxins with a water based solution?

Some mycotoxins easily dissolve in water. Aflatoxin doesn’t. Like many other mycotoxins aflatoxin prefers organic solvents. In 2008 Chris Maragos from the USDA published a method in the Journal of the AOAC using water with a detergent (SDS) as an additive. He showed results for aqueous extraction of aflatoxin from corn were as good as methods using methanol based solvents.  Since SDS is not very environmental friendly it took some years to develop a more eco-friendly mycotoxin analysis method.

The eco-friendly mycotoxin analysis solution from R-Biopharm

We developed and validated a water based extraction method for our lateral flow based aflatoxin test. RIDA®QUICK Aflatoxin RQS ECO is a quantitative lateral flow test for the analysis of aflatoxin in corn.  It uses a water based extraction method – the required reagents are supplied with the kit. Simply mix the ground sample with extraction buffer, shake, centrifuge, and run the test. No dilution steps are necessary. Read the result after 5 minutes with the RIDA®QUICK SCAN reader. RIDA®QUICK Aflatoxin RQS ECO is a reliable, rapid AND eco-friendly mycotoxin test:

• Better for the environment, safer to work with: No organic solvents required.
• Saves reagent and waste disposal costs.
• Results are available within 5 minutes after extraction.
• Results are evaluated with your RIDA®QUICK SCAN reader.
• Measurement range from 4 – 75 ppb.
• Results compare well with methanol or ethanol based extraction methods.
• Aflatoxin standards and reference materials available for quality assurance.

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