Detecting adulteration in honey samples by ion chromatography

What is adulteration of honey?

Honey has long been a prime target of adulteration for economic gain. It can be adulterated by mixing it with high fructose corn syrup or jaggery or sugar syrup. While adulteration cannot be detected by visually examining or tasting honey, it can well be identified by analysis of the fructose/glucose ratio. If this ratio is found to be significantly higher than 1.2 : 1 adulteration has to be considered.

Analysis by ion chromatography with Metrohm's 817 Bioscan

The ratio of glucose and fructose can be reliably and precisely analyzed using ion chromatography in conjunction with pulsed amperometric detection (PAD) at moderately elevated temperatures (32°C). The analysis is done on a MIC-8 Advanced modular IC system. The heart piece of this system is Metrohm’s superb 817 Bioscan which is predestined for sugar analysis. The electrochemical detection is performed with a maintenance-free measuring cell which is located within the shielded and insulating housing of the column oven. The three-electrode measuring principle is applied; a gold working electrode is used as standard.

As a very versatile detector, the 817 Bioscan can also be used to determine alcohols, sugar alcohols, sugar acids, polysaccharides and other oxidizable or reducible substances.

Sample preparation is really easy and fast. Just dilute the sample with deionised water in a ratio of 1 to 10000 and filtrate this solution.

Product information

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Get more information

• Download our Application Note P-31 (analysis of glucose and fructose in honey) from the Info Center
• Read the articles of our customer magazine Metrohm Information in issues 1/2002 and 1/2001
• Send us your request!

Tips

• Sample preparation
  • The filtration of the diluted sample can optionally be done inline with Metrohm’s famous 833 Advanced IC Liquid Handling Ultrafiltration Unit.
  • When it comes to difficult matrices, Metrohm is simply first choice. Metrohm’s reliable Inline Sample Preparation concept (MISP) for ion chromatography allows rationalizing the time-consuming and cost-intensive manual sample preparation steps dramatically.
• Automation: If automation is required, then just use the 838 Advanced IC Injection Sample Processor which simplifies the instrumental setup by skipping the valve unit.
• Validation: For the Validation of Metrohm ion chromatography systems using Standard Operating Procedures see our Application Bulletin 277 (Info Center).
• Honey: More information about honey from recipes to quality control can be found e.g. on the American National Honey Board