Despite the recent, successful efforts to detect mycotoxins, new methods are still required to achieve higher sensitivity, more simplicity, higher speed, and higher accuracy at lower costs. This project describes the determination of ochratoxin A (OTA) using corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) in the licorice roots. A quick screening and measuring method is proposed to be employed after cleaning up the extracted OTA by immunoaffinity columns. The ion mobility spectrometer is used in the inverse mode to better differentiate the OTA peak from the neighboring ones. After optimization of the experimental conditions such as corona voltage, injection port temperature, and IMS cell temperature, a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.010 ng is obtained. Furthermore, the calibration curve is found to be in the range of 0.01-1 ng with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.988. To determine OTA using inverse-IMS in real sample, licorice root was chosen. It was divided into two halves, one sent to an accredited lab, Gesellschaft für Bioanalytik Hamburg, Germany (GBA), and one was used for extraction using the procedure we applied. Ten ?L of the extracted OTA was then injected into the IMS. The amount of OTA in this sample was calculated to be 88 ± 6 pg equivalent to 8.8 ± 0.6 (ng/g licorice root) after recovery corrections were affected. This was very close to the value (8.5 ) reported by GBA Lab, Germany, for a similar sample. To verify the results, a similar procedure was used for a second fresh sample of licorice root and the OTA content was found to be 0.6 ± 0.1 , which is comparable to 0.5 reported by GBA Lab. The nature of licorice product makes this technique a potentially vital part of their quality control. Licorice root is normally stocked in extraction plant in large quantities for long storage times (even up to one year) before they are processed. For such plants which are typically cultivated and used in less developed countries, it is much easier to control their contamination by an easy-to-use and inexpensive technique such as inverse IMS. Speed of the test is also vital as it enables the plant to reject consignment of contaminated licorice root on the spot. The effects of temperature and relative humidity (RH) on OTA formation during licorice root storage were also investigated. Four different conditions (9 ? C, 51% RH; 15 ? C, 49% RH; 22 ? C, 35% RH; 29 ? C,27% RH) corresponding to four seasons of Shiraz climate were simulated using different concentrations of sulfuric acid in four incubators. Sixty days was regarded as total incubation time and OTA was determined each twenty days by using Inverse-IMS. The results showed that the maximum level of OTA in roots was formed in the summer condition after 40days equal to 24.2 ± 2.5 . The minimum amount of OTA is also related to winter condition which didn’t demonstrate significant in
